With vaccination advance, we can get out of the pandemic stage this year, says Pasternak

A year after the first vaccine against Covid-19 was applied in Brazil, microbiologist Natalia Pasternak spoke to CNN, this Monday (17), about the prospects for the pandemic in the country with the advance in immunization this year. For the specialist, the scenario is positive, but still calls for caution.

“We move from the pandemic stage of a disease that kills, to a disease that, in vaccinated people, affects and takes away from the job market [por afastamento], this generates a social problem, it is a year with different problems. But it is not a wasted year, probably if we manage to continue with this vaccination well done, we will leave the pandemic stage and enter the stage of control, surveillance, endemic outbreaks, but no longer a pandemic”, evaluated Pasternak.

The microbiologist says that, despite the optimism around the advance of vaccination, the Ômicron variant still calls for caution.

“It is a year of improvement, but of caution because of Ômicron. The variant encounters a very different world, a partially vaccinated world, but it is a world where the Ômicron will have a very different impact from the [variantes] previous years, it has a much more social impact”, he added.

Natália Pasternak said that Brazil, traditionally, adheres well to vaccination campaigns, but warned of the possible construction of an anti-vaccination movement in the country.

The specialist reiterates the importance of carrying out vaccination campaigns in Brazil, in a simple and didactic way, to assure the population of the effectiveness of immunizations.

“Vaccination advertising campaigns need to be carried out. Unfortunately, this ended up being the responsibility of the Brazilian media, which does it excellently, but it’s not the media’s role, it’s the government’s role. We need information given in an easy, didactic way, because unfortunately they are being victims of an attempt to implant doubts in relation to the childhood vaccine. The anti-vaccination movement is being built slowly, and it is being built in Brazil”, he said.