The Ministry of Health promoted this Saturday (24), in Brasília, vaccination against poliomyelitis and multi-vaccination, in Parque da Cidade. The activity was attended by Minister Marcelo Queiroga. With less than half of the target audience vaccinated, the federal government extended the vaccination campaign until September 30. 
The strategy aims to mobilize parents and guardians to immunize children under five years of age against the virus that causes infantile paralysis and to update the vaccination booklet for children and adolescents under 15 years of age.
“We have a great challenge, not allowing polio to be reintroduced in Brazil,” said the Minister of Health. He called for public engagement in the immunization of children.
“We have 15 million children to vaccinate and we need you to help us so that we can bring parents and grandparents to vaccinate at least 95% of these children,” he explained. The last case of poliomyelitis registered was in 1989, in the city of Sousa, in Paraíba. The minister recalled that the National Immunization Program provides more than 22 vaccines for the Brazilian population against various diseases.
According to the Ministry of Health, the target audience comprises 14.3 million children under five years of age, and children under one year of age should be immunized according to the vaccination status for the primary scheme.
droplet
Children aged one to four years should take a dose of the Oral Poliomyelitis Vaccine (VOP), popularly known as droplet, provided they have already received three doses of Inactivated Poliomyelitis Vaccine (VIP) in the basic regimen. So far, about six million doses have been applied in Brazil.
Since 2016, polio vaccine coverage is below 95%, the rate recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Last year, less than 70% of children were vaccinated, according to information from DataSUS.
In addition to the mobilization against poliomyelitis, the act in Brasília has a blood pressure measurement service, diabetes testing and integrative practices, in addition to medical care and referral services, all free of charge.
The event also marks 32 years of implementation of the Unified Health System (SUS), conceived by the 1988 Constitution.
pandemic and monkeypox
In his speech, the Minister of Health commented on the current situation of the covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, comparing it with the most serious period of the crisis, in 2021, when the country recorded a daily moving average of deaths of more than three thousand people.
“The union of all made it possible for us to overcome this public health emergency. Today, the moving average of deaths is less than 70 cases per day. In other words, we live in a more controlled epidemiological scenario”, he emphasized.
About monkeypox (monkeypox), the minister said that the SUS managed to structure a network with more than 15 laboratories capable of making the diagnosis, in addition to the acquisition of medicines. “Soon, vaccines will arrive, all this is the result of SUS”, he said.
He also mentioned the expansion of the health surveillance system, since the beginning of the pandemic. “Our health surveillance structure has tripled. Cievs [Centro de Informações Estratégicas em Saúde] there were 55 and today there are 164, many of them in the border region”, he concluded.
