The city of Rio de Janeiro started today (15) to vaccinate 4-year-old children against covid-19. For now, immunization is being done only with CoronaVac.
According to the schedule of the Municipal Health Department, the forecast is to vaccinate the public of this age group until Tuesday (19).
From the 20th to the 22nd of July, children aged 3 years will be immunized. On July 23, there will be a recap to vaccinate everyone aged 3 and over.
According to the municipality’s Health Surveillance superintendent, Márcio Garcia, as soon as the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) authorized its use for this age group, the city of Rio de Janeiro decided to start vaccinating, since it has enough vaccines.
“We are moving further in the calendar. The more people vaccinated, we have greater collective protection. What we observed in Anvisa’s official communication is that there is no doubt about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. We understood that we could not waste any more time”, he said.
According to Garcia, the city has already made a request for new doses to the Ministry of Health. CoronaVac’s vaccination schedule provides for the application of a second dose after 28 days.
The geographer Ana Moretti decided to take little Clarice, 4 years old, to take her first dose, at a health center in the south of the city, after more than 2 years of a pandemic. “I lost my mother to covid before the vaccine. I’m sorry for the people who didn’t get the opportunity,” she said.
So did journalist Bruno Quintella, who decided to immunize his son, Tim, on the first day. “We were really looking forward to this moment. In the first hour, I was already here at the door. We have already played our part as citizens. It is important to have the awareness, from a young age, to understand that it is a collective, to take care of each other. The quarantine may be over, but the pandemic is not.
