An additional 625 municipalities in six states will receive vaccines against dengue starting this Friday (26). With this, the total number of cities covered by the vaccine reaches 1,330, in 25 states. 
The new states covered are: Alagoas, Ceará, Sergipe, Piauí, Mato Grosso and Rio Grande do Sul.
The information was released this Thursday (25) by the ministry’s Secretary of Health and Environmental Surveillance, Ethel Maciel. According to her, the new regions were defined according to the list of priorities already agreed at the beginning of the year.
“Distribution will probably start tomorrow. The municipalities know that they will receive it, and then they start preparing,” she explained.
Until last Tuesday (23), 1,682,139 doses of vaccines were sent to the states, with 810,686 doses recorded – 48.19% of the total. In April, 117,530 vaccines were administered, which shows a significant reduction compared to March (463,481 doses administered).
According to the secretary, the drop can be explained by the delay in registering the application by the municipalities. “Some municipalities carry out vaccinations and use their own systems, so it takes time to send data to the national health network”, she says.
Cases
The number of probable cases of dengue reached 3,852,901 in the first four months of 2024. Confirmed deaths from the disease during the period totaled 1,792, in addition to 2,216 deaths under investigation.
At this moment, the Federal District and 10 states are showing a downward trend in the number of records of the disease: Acre, Amapá, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Norte, Rondônia, Roraima, Santa Catarina and São Paulo. Another ten show a trend of stability: Alagoas, Amazonas, Bahia, Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Roraima, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul.
Ceará, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Sergipe and Tocantins continue to show an increasing trend in the number of cases. Compared to last week, the state of Tocantins joined this list.
Anticipation of the epidemic
The Ministry of Health is already preparing for the new increase in dengue cases to begin from November this year. According to Secretary Ethel, just as there was an anticipation of the peak of cases this year, it is possible that this will also occur in 2025.
“We will have a short preparation time because at this moment our mathematical models understand that we could start the 2025 epidemic in November 2024. So, we are acting on the current epidemic and are already preparing ourselves due to the short space we will have between the epidemic of 2024 and 2025”, said the secretary.
