Just over a year after the start of the vaccination campaign against Covid-19, vaccination coverage in Brazil has stagnated.
This is what a technical note published by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation points out, based on data from the Ministry of Health.
The study released this Wednesday (29) shows that 83.98% of the population has already been immunized with at least one dose and 78.93% have the complete primary regimen (second dose).
The analysis reveals the difficulties in advancing in all age groups and the discrepancy in coverage between regions.
agency data CNN also indicate low adherence to the 3rd and 4th dose booster in the country, with 43.44% and 6.63%, respectively.
While the South and Southeast regions have a high percentage of the population immunized, other parts of the country have pockets with low vaccination against Covid-19.
In relation to the first dose and complete primary regimen (2nd dose), a lower coverage was observed, mainly in cities in the Midwest and North.
Also in these locations, the first booster dose persists with low coverage, at about 50% or less.
This is the case of the capitals Porto Velho, where only 38% of the adult population took the first booster dose (3rd dose), and Cuiabá, with 43.7%.
The states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, Piauí, Paraíba, Bahia and do Sul have the highest coverage of the first booster dose.
The difference is also observed in coverage for children and adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, where areas in the Midwest and North of the country again have low coverage.
According to Fiocruz, part of this scenario can be explained by the lack of coordinated and centralized actions by the authorities since the beginning of the health crisis.
“During 2021, several city managers tried to accelerate vaccination with the aim of reaching the population over 18 as soon as possible. This situation caused divergent calendars between municipalities”, says the study.
Fiocruz warns that the demobilization of the population in relation to the severity of the disease and the low demand for immunizations in some places and population groups can provide a window of transmission of the disease and bring problems to the health system.
In addition, it proves to be a risk in the fight against the disease, allowing new variants to emerge and the speed of contagion of Covid-19 to increase considerably.
According to data from the Our World in Data platform, also released by Fiocruz this Wednesday, stagnation in vaccine coverage has occurred in most nations.
In South Korea and Vietnam, the problem is recorded with 81% of the population having a complete primary regimen. Uruguay and Argentina present this scenario with about 72% of the population vaccinated.
Brazil, the United States, Thailand, Germany and France showed stagnation at 62%. Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia and India showed stagnation with coverage percentage around 57%.
Fiocruz’s technical note also highlights the difficulty in unifying the data due to the lack of standardization of the systems in some states.
One of the examples cited in the document is the filling in of data for the first and second booster doses in the states of Goiás, Pará, Roraima, Acre, Amapá, Maranhão, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Tocantins, Espírito Santo and Rio Grande do Norte.
In these places, part of the vaccines given as a second booster dose may have been recorded as a first booster dose. This inconsistency can, according to the foundation, compromise the monitoring of the immunization process.
Vaccination against Covid-19 in capitals
In the Southeast of the country, Belo Horizonte (MG) had 109.1% adherence to D1 and 100.3% to D2. The index exceeds 100% when the number of vaccinated extrapolates the expected target audience.
Already in the first booster dose it decreased to 82.7% and in the second, 38.1%. In Rio de Janeiro (RJ), 99.9% of the population was vaccinated with the first dose, 99.8% with the second, 70.4% with the first booster dose and 36.1% with the second.
São Paulo (SP) showed an adherence to D1 of 110.5% and of 107.1% to D2. D3 and D4 had 80.7% and 53.9%, respectively.
Regarding the public aged between 18 and 59, Vitória (ES) had 111.44% of the population vaccinated with D1, 110.01% with D2, 63.23% with D3 and 8.53% with D4.
Director of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations (SBIm), Mônica Levi believes that, at the beginning of the campaign, adherence was high, but it lost strength over time due to lack of information.
According to the doctor, it is necessary for the government to provide and make more campaigns to encourage the population to take the immunizing agent.
“There is still a lot of prejudice with the vaccine, even more so because there is a lot of fake news about it. The vaccination schedule was very confusing, there were never four different types of vaccines for the same disease, let alone four vaccines with different intervals. With this, the population lost credibility in immunizations and stopped looking for health posts. Apart from the lag issue, which many places in the country still have digitization problems”, says the director.
The coverage of the first dose (D1) in Recife (PE) and Salvador (BA) reached 98%, dropped to 97% in the second, and further reduced to 69% in the first booster dose.
The population of Maceió (AL) had an adherence of 83% to the first dose, 82% to the second and 36% to the first booster dose. In Porto Velho (RO), D1 had a coverage of 85%, D2 of 77% and the booster doses showed a sharp drop, with the first dose at 38% and the second at 12%.
For the public over 18 years old, D1 in Cuiabá (MT) was applied in 96.3% of the target audience, while D2 in 92.4%.
The booster dose, 43.7%, and the population over 40 years, entitled to a second booster dose, 16.7%. In Curitiba (PR), the first dose of the immunizer reached 88.1% of the population, the second (D2) to 83.3% and the booster (D3) to 63.3%.
According to Tânia Vergara, from the Society of Infectious Diseases of the State of Rio de Janeiro, going to health centers and taking consecutive doses is an important act so that the disease does not manifest itself in a serious way.
Vergara points out that, even if the immunizer was designed to combat one type of variant, it offers a safety net for the other forms that exist or may arise.
“You can have Covid, but if you are vaccinated, most of the cases are not serious, 85% of the people in the world who do not have the complete vaccination schedule, with the Ômicron variant circulating, are those who are hospitalized and the disease evolves in a different way. serious. It is normal for people to revaccinate to remember that the immune system exists. That’s why vaccination is done periodically. Vaccination is an act of respect, of love, for oneself and for others”, defends the doctor.
Source: CNN Brasil
