Opinion – Pedro Hallal: It makes no sense to count vaccine doses

Soon, Brazil will start one of its annual flu vaccination campaigns. As in previous years, millions of Brazilians will visit the Unified Health System to protect themselves and others. Vaccination culture is one of the heritage of our country.

But one thing is important to note:

No Brazilian will say: “I took my twenty-third dose of the flu vaccine”. Instead, he’ll say, “I got my 2022 flu shot.”

It is exactly this logic that we need to adopt in the vaccination against Covid-19. Dose counting, currently in use, confuses the public and fuels denialist theories. Who has never received in a WhatsApp group that denialist image questioning the effectiveness of vaccines because some people are already taking the fourth dose?

The truth is that Covid-19 vaccines are a resounding success story, but we need to improve communication.

A resounding success because they were created in less than a year, a record time in the history of public health.

A resounding success because, even created in record time, they present safety and efficacy indicators that are among the best ever seen in the history of public health.

A resounding success because, before the arrival of the omicron variant, cases of infection among vaccinated people were rare.

A resounding success because, even after the arrival of the omicron variant, the vaccinated have a much lower risk of mortality, hospitalization and severe cases than the unvaccinated.

A resounding success because, on a global level, the vaccine against Covid-19 has already saved millions of lives.

Despite all the success of the Covid-19 vaccine, obviously communication remains important. The denialist crusade against the vaccine, led in Brazil by the president himself, seeks daily news to cast doubt on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. Some of the craziest deniers (incredibly some of them in top positions) even seem to be rooting for the deaths of vaccinated children, to “prove” their conspiracy theories that the vaccine is unsafe.

The truth is that any father and mother, who really thinks about the health of their children, vaccinate them. This is because the risk of a serious case and even death from Covid-19 is infinitely higher than the risk of a complication resulting from the vaccine. The father and mother who decide to ban the vaccination of their children are, in fact, making a political decision, at the expense of the children’s health.

But for all the gears to work and vaccination continues to be a success in Brazil, we need to improve our communication. And right now the priority is to stop counting vaccine doses, and accept that, like many other vaccines, the Covid-19 one will be taken from time to time, when necessary.

There is still no definitive answer as to whether the Covid-19 vaccine will be taken once or twice a year, or even at longer intervals. This depends on the duration of immunity conferred by the vaccine and how much the virus is circulating. The best studies indicate that the immunity conferred by the vaccine, in a scenario of wide circulation of the virus, is about six months.

In addition, at this time, when we are still experiencing the pandemic, it is likely that we will have to take more doses than in a future when the circulation of the virus will be more restricted. This is normal in public health. What is not normal is counting doses of vaccine and feeding denialist theories that multiple doses prove that the vaccine does not work.

We need communication about the vaccine to be as effective as the vaccine itself.