The Brazilian government finally gave the green light yesterday for the vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 years against COVID-19, against the background of the large increase in cases of the new coronavirus and after the war caused by its approval by the competent supervisory body.
“The Ministry of Health guarantees (s.s. that will be available) doses of vaccines to all parents who want to vaccinate their children,” assured the Brazilian Minister of Health, Marcelo Keiroga.
The immunization campaign for children aged 5-11, which is estimated at 20.5 million in Brazil, will begin in the middle of this month, following the arrival in the country of the first doses of the pediatric version of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
It will proceed at a declining age and with priority given to children with disabilities or special needs, as well as to what is deemed to be most vulnerable, especially those of indigenous communities.
Brazil will thus be included in the growing list of countries that have expanded vaccination to children, including the United States, Germany and France, among others.
In mid-December, the relevant regulatory body, ANVISA, approved the emergency authorization of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for children aged 5-11.
Yesterday’s announcement follows the uproar and war that broke out in the largest Latin American country, with the government being accused of delaying the decision.
Far-right president Zaich Bolsonaro, who has always refused to be vaccinated, has publicly stated that he will not approve of the vaccination of Laura’s 11-year-old daughter.
A few weeks ago, the head of state demanded that the names of ANVISA executives who approved the vaccination of children against COVID-19 be made public.
Reacting, a union of workers in the supervisory body denounced its “fascist” methods.
A public consultation was held from December 23rd to January 2nd, as the Ministry of Health suggested that a prescription be mandatory for children to be vaccinated.
However, this proposal was rejected by the majority of almost 100,000 people who participated, the Ministry of Health recognized yesterday, Tuesday.
Finally, the ministry ruled out requiring a medical prescription, but set a medical opinion as a prerequisite.
Several experts point out that vaccinating children is essential to protect against pandemics, as the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is spreading around the globe.
Brazil, which officially has nearly 620,000 deaths due to COVID-19, has so far fully vaccinated 67% of its population.
Over 27,000 new infections
The Brazilian Ministry of Health announced yesterday Wednesday that in the previous 24 hours 127 patients died due to complications of COVID-19 and 27,267 cases of SARS-CoV-2 were confirmed.
Officially, the death toll from the new coronavirus pandemic in Latin America’s largest country of 212 million stands at 619,513 dead out of a total of 22,351,104 reported infections.
However, the data on the epidemiological situation is not complete lately, due to the hacker attack on December 10th, which disabled the ministry’s systems and databases.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
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Source From: Capital
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