Vaccination against dengue will begin in the North of Minas

Claro dos Poções, Itacambira, Glaucilândia, Juramento, Mirabela and Montes Claros are the first six municipalities in the North of Minas that will receive the first shipment of 28,329 doses of dengue vaccines. The decision was taken this Thursday (26), by the Ministry of Health, which expanded vaccination to another 625 municipalities in six states. The new regions will be awarded the fourth shipment of 986.5 thousand doses, which will also be destined for municipalities that had previously been included as priorities for vaccination against dengue, as they have a high incidence of transmission of the disease.

For municipalities that are part of the area of ​​activity of the Regional Health Superintendency (SRS), the transfer of the first shipment of dengue vaccines was defined as follows: Montes Claros (26 thousand 309 doses); Mirabela (850); Claro dos Poções (474); Itacambira (277); Juramento (248) and Glaucilândia (171).

Agna Soares da Silva Menezes, coordinator of health surveillance and the Center for Strategic Information in Health Surveillance (Cievs), at the Montes Claros SRS highlights the importance of including municipalities in the North of Minas Gerais in vaccination against dengue, taking into account the high incidence of disease transmission in the region.

“This year, of the 86 municipalities that make up the health macro-region of Northern Minas, only Verdelândia has an average incidence rate of diseases transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The other locations have a high or very high incidence rate”, observes the coordinator.

According to the Ministry of Health, with the expansion of municipalities that will have vaccines against dengue, 1,300 locations across the country will be eligible for vaccination. “It is important to highlight that we are following the list of regions previously agreed with the health managers of the states and municipalities”, explains the secretary of health and environmental surveillance at the Ministry of Health, Ethel Maciel.

The distribution of doses in the municipalities was determined based on three criteria: ranking of health regions and municipalities; required quantity of doses according to the availability predicted by the manufacturer and the calculation of the total doses to be delivered in a single shipment to the municipalities.

The vaccines intended for the application of the second dose will be sent to municipalities considering the recommended interval of three months to complete the vaccination schedule.

STRATEGY
Brazil is the first country in the world that, as of February this year, began offering the dengue vaccine in the universal public system. The Ministry of Health incorporated the vaccine into the Unified Health System (SUS) in December 2023.

Children and adolescents between 10 and 14 years old are being vaccinated, the age group that has the highest number of hospitalizations due to dengue fever (16.4 thousand from January 2019 to November 2023), after the elderly, a group for which the vaccine is not available. was authorized by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa). The vaccination schedule consists of two doses, with an interval of three months between them.