The Ministry of Health announced this Wednesday the expansion of vaccination against dengue in Brazil. An additional 154 municipalities will receive doses of the vaccine. Currently with around 35 thousand confirmed cases of the disease and more than 40 deaths, Rio Grande do Sul remains outside the vaccination schedule.
According to the Ministry of Health, the cities that will receive the doses were chosen based on criteria such as the size of municipalities with high transmission and a resident population equal to or greater than 100,000 inhabitants. When questioned, so far, the ministry has not given details of the reasons why the cities in RS that fit these criteria were not included in the vaccination. According to the ministry, the federal government has 668,000 doses close to expiration date.
When contacted, the State Department of Health lamented that there is no forecast for the arrival of dengue vaccines, even with the emergency decree sanctioned at the beginning of this month. The ministry also confirmed that Governor Eduardo Leite spoke with the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade Lima, and requested the sending of doses to RS, but that so far there is no news about the sending of these immunizers.
The conversation would have taken place at a meeting between governors and ministry teams on February 7th. According to the ministry, since then, there has been no direct contact with the minister or ministry teams on the topic.
New cities with dengue vaccines
The new municipalities that will receive the doses are part of 11 regional health coordinators. They are located in the states of São Paulo (regions of São Paulo, São José do Rio Preto, Campinas and Guaraní Aquifer), Santa Catarina (Florianópolis), Paraná ( Apucarana), Pernambuco (Recife), Minas Gerais (Betim, Uberaba and Uberlândia) and Espírito Santo (Central).
In total, 930 thousand doses will be distributed to the 521 municipalities initially selected and to the 154 now covered by the expansion. As of early Wednesday afternoon, Brazil has recorded 2.3 million probable cases of dengue and 831 deaths.
