Covid vaccine will be included in the National Immunization Program

Coronavirus

Annual vaccination will come into effect from 2024

From 2024, the dose of the vaccine against covid-19 will become part of the National Immunization Program (PNI). The Ministry of Health’s recommendation is that states and municipalities prioritize children aged 6 months to children under 5 years of age and groups at greater risk of developing severe forms of the disease: the elderly; immunocompromised; pregnant and postpartum women; health workers; people with comorbidities; indigenous, riverside and quilombola communities; people in long-term care institutions and workers; people with permanent disabilities; people deprived of liberty; adolescents and young people complying with socio-educational measures; employees of the deprivation of liberty system; and people living on the streets.

“It is an important change, in line with the World Health Organization [OMS], in which the vaccine against covid-19 becomes part of our National Immunization Program. During the pandemic, a parallel program was created to operationalize the vaccine against Covid-19, outside of our national program. What we did this year was to bring the vaccine against covid-19 into the National Immunization Program. The vaccine is now recommended in the children’s calendar. For all children born or living in Brazil, aged between 6 months and under 5 years, the vaccine becomes mandatory in the vaccination calendar”,

highlighted the ministry’s Secretary of Health and Environmental Surveillance, Ethel Maciel.

“Furthermore, in line with the recent World Health Organization recommendation, we are now incorporating the dose into the annual vaccination calendar for priority groups. Here in Brazil, we have slightly expanded the group that the WHO recommends, which is more restricted. We will, in the 2024 campaign, maintain the same groups as in 2023. These are the two fundamental changes”,

explained.

The secretary also recalled that the bivalent vaccine remains available throughout the country, and recommended that anyone who has not yet received the dose this year seek immunization. “The vaccine will be annual. If the person took this dose, they are already up to date with the dose. This is the recommendation of the World Health Organization now, annual dose”.

Other groups

“As we always do in other campaigns, we open it to priority groups and, later, if there is a surplus of vaccine, we open it to the others. This has always been the recommendation of the Ministry of Health. We will focus on the priorities because the main focus of the disease now, worldwide, is a reduction in severity, hospitalization and death”,

highlighted Ethel.

“We already have very robust and convincing elements that indicate the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. In Brazil, we had 4 thousand people dying every day from Covid. Today, we have 42. This is the greatest proof of the vaccine’s effectiveness.”

“For adults in general, people who are immunocompetent, as we said when there is no underlying disease, the doses you took still protect you. You still have protection against the severity of the disease,” she added. “We have a respiratory infection, but we don’t have the severity of the disease. Vaccines also protect against long Covid, studies already show this. So, for immunocompetent adults, we would not need a new dose so far. Remembering that it is a new disease. If a new variant emerges that escapes the vaccines that I fear, we always need to change our recommendations.”

long Covid

The ministry reported that it has already commissioned a national population-based study to interview around 33,000 people with a focus on long Covid. “It is something that also concerns us here at the Ministry of Health, because we do not have international or national estimates, although they give us elements to create public policies. This study is being coordinated by researcher at the Federal University of Pelotas Pedro Hallal. The study goes to people’s homes to find out how many times they had Covid, if they had symptoms, and if they persist. We are going into the field now at the end of November and we hope, by the end of the year, to have data so that we can think, in 2024, about how we will also deal with long Covid”.

Numbers

According to the Ministry of Health, Brazil follows a trend observed globally and records fluctuations in the number of cases of the disease. Data from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) indicate an increase in cases in the adult population of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo.

In Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso do Sul, there is a sign of a slow increase in the occurrences of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) resulting from Covid-19 in the elderly population, but with no impact on the total number of cases identified. The Federal District, Goiás and Rio de Janeiro, which previously had a growth alert, showed signs of interruption in the increase in notifications.

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