View of the Consolação Cemetery, in the central region of the city of São Paulo
Photo: Felipe Rau/Estadão / Estadão
The number of deaths of children and adolescents under the age of 15 grew by 7.8% between 2021 and 2022 – an increase that is at odds with the trend of reducing mortality seen in the general population in the same period. For researchers from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), who released the Civil Registry Statistics 2022 survey this Wednesday, 27th, the increase may still be a remnant of the covid-19 pandemic, especially because this age group was the last to be vaccinated.
40,195 deaths of children and adolescents aged 0 to 14 were recorded in 2022, a total of 2,908 more deaths (7.8%) than the number recorded in the previous year (37,287).
- In absolute and relative terms, the biggest increase occurred among children aged 1 to 4 years: there were 6,012 deaths in this age group in 2022, 1,304 more (27.7%) than in 2021 (4,708 deaths). Data from the Mortality Information System (SIM), from the Ministry of Health.
According to information from SIM, deaths caused by respiratory diseases (flu, pneumonia, bronchiolitis, asthma, among others) accounted for more than 60% of the difference in the total number of deaths in this age group between 2021 and 2022.
“Considering that the vaccination of Brazilian children and adolescents against Covid-19 took place well after the vaccination of adults, and that, therefore, they took longer to complete the vaccination schedule, it is possible that the disease has contributed strongly to this situation”, the experts maintained.
According to the research, in 2022, 1,524,731 deaths were recorded in Brazil – 15% less than what occurred in the previous year, the height of the coronavirus crisis.
In 2021, the survey had recorded 1,786,347 deaths, the highest number ever recorded since the beginning of the historical series, in 1974, a significant figure about the impact of the pandemic in Brazil, one of the countries most affected by Covid.
From the analysis of deaths by age groups, it is possible to say that there was a reduction in the number of deaths that occurred in the year for all groups aged 15 years and over. The age groups from 40 to 49 years old (-30.1%) and from 50 to 59 years old (-30.5%) were those that showed the biggest reduction between 2021 and 2022.
- Elderly people aged 80 or over accounted for the largest number of deaths in the country between 2019 and 2022. In the last year, there were 483,033 deaths in this age group, which corresponds to 32.2% of all deaths that occurred in the year and whose age of the deceased was known.
Experts also point out that the participation of elderly people in deaths tends to increase, given the aging of Brazil’s population, which is seeing a rapid demographic transition.
Even with the significant reduction in the general number of deaths, the value observed in 2022 is still much higher than that of 2019, the last year before the pandemic, when 1,317,292 deaths were recorded. In relation to the average for the five years prior to the pandemic (1,276,879), the number of deaths was also higher in 2022.
In fact, the beginning of 2022 was marked by the third wave of the covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, caused by the Ômicron variant, in addition to an influenza A epidemic, also responsible for the increase in deaths among elderly people in the period.
Comparison with the pre-pandemic year suggests that, despite the reduction in deaths from Covid in a context of increased coverage of the vaccinated population, the new coronavirus remained quite lethal in the first half of 2022.
In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) only declared the end of the Public Health Emergency of International Importance (ESPII) on May 5, 2023.
As for the place where deaths occurred that year, around three quarters (73%) occurred in a health unit, a lower percentage than that observed in 2021 (76.6%) and closer to the pattern observed pre-pandemic. Death at home accounted for 20.8% of deaths; and in 6.2% of cases there was no declaration of place of death or the declared place was another.
