In Rio, less than 5% of children vaccinated against Covid have comorbidities or disabilities

In two days of childhood vaccination campaign, the capital of Rio de Janeiro immunized 30,884 children. Of them, according to the Municipal Health Department, 4.94% have comorbidities or disabilities.

“This group always comes during the campaign, because of the difficulty of locomotion, and they also always ask the professional who accompanies them for advice”, explained the municipal secretary of Health, Daniel Soranz.

The initial calendar, which would reach until next Friday (21) 10-year-old children, had to have the advance interrupted due to lack of doses. Is that, according to the secretary, to immunize those who are in this age group, 60,000 doses are needed, quantitative not available in stock.

“It is very difficult because vaccines come in droppers, and we have the capacity to vaccinate all children from 5 to 11 years old in one week. We still split the calendar by age and gender, but we rely on more doses to be able to advance the ages,” Soranz explained.

With this, this week only children aged 11 and the priority group will be vaccinated. Soranz’s expectation is to move forward with immunization again next Monday (24), with the arrival of more shipments. The executive secretary of the Ministry of Health, Rodrigo Cruz, announced on Monday (17) the anticipation of the 3rd batch of the delivery of pediatric vaccines against Covid-19 to the states for the beginning of next week.

In the capital of Rio de Janeiro, the children’s campaign began last Monday (17) with only 6% of the vaccines needed to immunize the city’s 560,000 children between five and 11 years old.

According to the Ministry of Health, during the first quarter of 2022, almost 20 million pediatric doses should arrive in Brazil. However, over the course of the year, another 100,000 Pfizer infant doses are expected to be made available.