The public consultation for vaccination against Covid-19 in children aged 5 to 11 years it ended on Sunday (2).
This Tuesday (4), the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, and some agencies in the area will hold a public hearing on the matter from 10 am onwards.
The folder did not reveal what information was collected from the 10-day consultation.
The measure came after the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) have approved the immunizing agent of the Pfizer in emergency use for children in the country, on December 16th.
The text, announced by the federal government and published in the Official Gazette of the Union (DOU), on December 22, contraindicated the vaccine and suggested that doctors provide a prescription for children to be vaccinated.
The measure aims, according to the minister, “to carry out an administrative procedure to assess Anvisa’s decision in all its aspects, in order, based on this analysis, to verify the implementation of that decision within the scope of a public policy.”
Today, the data collected from the public consultation will be discussed together with the position of the Technical Advisory Board on Immunization of Covid-19 (CTAI Covid-19) and will serve as the basis for the final decision of the Ministry of Health (MS).
Anvisa had already consulted about 1,600 people – among them scientists and doctors – to release the vaccine for children on an emergency basis.
The doctors who will participate in the public hearing will only be known during the event, and the criteria used by the government for the call were not clarified.
What is a public hearing
The public hearing is a mechanism for social participation. It is at these meetings that citizens and civil society can contribute so that collective issues are prioritized.
Queiroga said he wanted to hear from parents, specialists and other bodies — in addition to the specialists consulted by Anvisa.
Problems with registration
At the beginning of the opening of the public consultation, on December 23, the Ministry of Health website faced several difficulties.
Initially, to platform it was out of the air, and to replace it, a form was made available that, according to experts heard by the CNN at the time, it did not respect the basic privacy and security practices required by the General Data Protection Law (LGPD).
The page requested personal data such as CPF, full name, telephone number and e-mail, but there was no notice about privacy or data protection treatment, except for a notice from Microsoft itself — the platform used by MS — exempting itself.
On the 24th, Health updated the consultation and started using another, safer platform, but which faced instability for days.
Vaccine for children
Queiroga stated on Monday (3) that, regardless of the discussion of the public consultation, the Ministry’s guidance remains the same: “a medical prescription will be necessary.” Still, the minister affirms that doses for childhood vaccination will be available from January 10th.
Despite the Ministry’s indication, some states have already expressed themselves saying that “they will not require a prescription for the vaccination of children.”
In an interview with CNN, epidemiologist Pedro Hallal, from the Federal University of Pelotas (RS), criticized the minister’s guidance and said that “there is no scientific explanation for delaying this process of vaccinating children.”
*With information from Anna Gabriela Costa, Kaluan Bernardo and Rafael Coraccini, from CNN
Reference: CNN Brasil
