The Secretary of Health of the State of São Paulo, Jean Gorinchteyn, he said this Saturday (18), in an interview with CNN, that the delay on the part of the federal government in starting the vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 years is a “serious technical fault”.
The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) authorized last Thursday (16) to vaccination of this public with Pfizer’s immunizer. The federal government, however, announced that will hold a public hearing before deciding on the start of vaccination.
Gorinchteyn said that the Brazilian societies of immunization, pediatrics and infectology have already positioned themselves in favor of the vaccination of children. “I don’t know who would be a better technician than these societies, made up of hundreds, thousands of technicians who have already defended themselves. This is simply a lack of responsibility, civility, and worse, a serious technical lack of a manager for our public health.”
According to the secretary, the government of São Paulo is trying to negotiate a direct purchase of doses with the Pfizer, but “the position that was made by Pfizer was in the sense of maintaining exclusivity with the federal government at this time, in other words, waiting for the acquisition of these doses of immunizing agents for the pediatric age group”.
For him, this scenario is “very bad, especially in a pandemic moment like this, when we have to protect the population, and that includes children. From March of last year until September of this year, we had about 2,500 children who died as a result of Covid-19. This is much more than if we were to put together all the respiratory diseases in the pediatric age group in each of the previous years”.
He said the state government is awaiting an official position from Pfizer. If it is to maintain exclusivity with the Ministry of Health, Gorinchteyn stated that “when we receive a position contrary to what we believe to be humanitarian for this cause, we will surely take another action in the Supreme Federal Court“.
“At this moment, understanding that we are living in a pandemic emergency, we have the circulation of viruses that we already had before, as well as new variants, and that we have to protect the population in general, including children.”
Gorinchteyn also criticized the federal government’s decision to hold a public hearing on the subject in January 2022. “People are asking and wanting to immunize their children, grandchildren, and in this way we are all really protected.”
Reference: CNN Brasil
