Vaccination coverage targets for children under five years of age have not been achieved in the state of Rio de Janeiro for any of the vaccines in the 2022 children’s calendar, warns a preliminary survey released this Tuesday (27) by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). Despite being the second richest state in the country, Rio de Janeiro is also below the national average coverage of all vaccines, failing to reach half of the target public in the case of protections against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, bacterial pneumonia and meningitis. The vaccination schedule for children of the National Immunization Program can be consulted on the Ministry of Health’s website on the Internet, as well as other schedules for adolescents, adults, pregnant women and the elderly. The study was prepared by researchers from the Childhood Health Observatory (Observa Infância), an initiative of Fiocruz with the Faculty of Medicine of Petrópolis at the Arthur de Sá Earp Neto Center (Unifase). The data used are from the National Immunization Program Information System (SI-PNI), but are still considered preliminary. In addition to having collected data on November 28, before the end of the year, the researchers consider that city halls have until 2024 to provide this information to the Ministry of Health, which may cause the percentages to increase. Even if some municipalities manage to reach the targets for some vaccines with the data update, the coordinator of Observa Infância, Patricia Boccolini, assessed that the general scenario of the state will continue to be one of low coverage. Low coverage “In the national and state scenarios, we will hardly see such an abrupt change, even more so if we consider the trend of recent years, since 2022 is not an isolated case. Over the last decade, what we see year after year is a scenario of decline constant in vaccination rates”, he argued. A particularly dangerous case that draws the attention of researchers is measles, which is preventable with the triple viral vaccine: only 28% of babies who should have been vaccinated received the second dose of the vaccine at the recommended age. The survey also highlights the seriousness of vaccination coverage for yellow fever (41%); chickenpox (34%) and hepatitis A (31%). The target for yellow fever is 100% of children vaccinated, while for other vaccines the ideal is to reach 95%. The lowest target established for coverage is for the BCG vaccine, which needs to cover at least 90% of babies younger than one year. In this case, Brazil reached the target, with 92% of children vaccinated, but the state of Rio was well below: 75%. The importance of vaccination is directly related to the protection of children against diseases that can lead to death or leave serious sequelae. This is the case of illnesses such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, meningitis C, hepatitis A and hepatitis B. Sought by Agência Brasil, the State Health Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro stated that it has been coordinating actions with municipalities to revert the current situation, which he recognized as having low childhood vaccination coverage in the state. Vaccination book An action highlighted by the secretariat is the so-called sweeping, in which primary care teams from the municipalities go through the residences to check and update the vaccination book for children and adolescents. The secretariat also calls for society’s engagement to reverse this situation, “which threatens the health of an entire generation”. Health posts are stocked with all vaccines. But we need parents and guardians to take minors to be immunized”, said the folder. from the new federal government a great national mobilization to raise coverage.” It is very important that parents are also aware and take their children to update the vaccine booklet. Today, almost 50% of children are unprotected for polio, and the Ministry of Health already has the goal of starting a large national mobilization in favor of vaccination”, he concluded.
Agência Brasil
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