Health will allow expansion of the dengue vaccine – 03/05/2024 – Health

The Ministry of Health will allow the target audience of the dengue immunization campaign to be expanded to children and adolescents aged 10 to 14.

The department is expected to release this Wednesday (6) a technical note with guidance for states and municipalities. The current determination is to vaccinate people aged 10 to 11 years old.

The Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, said this Tuesday (5) that several states asked to expand the target audience because of the low demand for the vaccine in health centers. She stated that the ministry will intensify the dissemination of the immunization campaign. Nísia also said that the government should open the “vaccination program in schools” in March.

The national secretary of Health Surveillance, Ethel Maciel, said that the ministry carried out a study to expand the target audience to 10 to 14 years old without interfering with the application of the two doses of the vaccination schedule. The interval between applications is three months.

The ministry purchased 5.2 million doses of the dengue vaccine. Brazil records 1,253,919 probable cases of dengue, in addition to 299 confirmed deaths and another 765 under investigation, according to data from the Ministry of Health this Tuesday.

Health must guide states and municipalities to observe the quantity of vaccines received to ensure the application of the second dose.

The Surveillance Secretary said that immunization should not have a strong impact on the current health crisis. “We have to think about a medium-term strategy. It won’t be the last dengue epidemic we have,” said Maciel. “It is not a vaccination that will respond to this epidemic,” she further stated.

Flu vaccination

Minister Nísia also announced the anticipation of vaccination against flu. Campaigns are usually carried out in April. The ministry states that it has already started distributing the doses to the states and should publish a technical note on Wednesday with guidelines on the application of the vaccines.

Secretary Ethel Maciel said that the ministry’s guidance is to start the campaign against the flu as soon as possible in the municipalities. The doses are delivered by Health to the states, which pass them on to the municipal departments.

The ministry also intends to make Covid vaccines adapted for the XBB variants of the virus available in the SUS at the end of March. Maciel said that the department is finalizing the emergency purchase of doses. The ministry has not yet announced how many new generation vaccines should be purchased.