Brazil starts vaccinating children after weeks of delay

A well being employee offers a shot of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to 8-year-old Indigenous youth Davi Seremramiwe Xavante on the Hospital da Clinicas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022. The state of Sao Paulo began the COVID-19 vaccination of youngsters between ages 5 and 11.

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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Fifteen Brazilian kids acquired COVID-19 vaccines on Friday, marking the beginning of an effort that was delayed a number of weeks by the federal authorities’s reluctance to endorse the immunization of youngsters.

The nation’s well being regulator issued approval on Dec. 16 for the administration of the Pfizer shot to children aged 5 to 11. The choice incensed Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who has since complained about vaccinating kids, saying he gained’t let his 11-year-old daughter get photographs and warning of doable uncomfortable side effects.

A research launched by U.S. well being authorities in late December decided that severe uncomfortable side effects of the Pfizer vaccine in 5 to 11 12 months olds are uncommon. The outcomes had been primarily based on roughly 8 million doses distributed to kids in that age group.

Fairly than comply with the regulators’ steerage, Bolsonaro’s Well being Ministry revealed a web based questionnaire asking if kids ought to want a health care provider's prescription to get the shot. A number of the president’s supporters, like him leery of vaccines, campaigned on social media apps for individuals to vote towards them for youngsters.

Regardless of that, a majority of the survey’s nearly 100,000 contributors opposed the necessity for prescriptions and the Well being Ministry introduced final week that it could enable kids to be vaccinated.

An 8-year-old from the Xavante Indigenous group was the primary to get a shot on the ceremony in Sao Paulo’s Hospital das Clinicas, someday after 1.2 million doses designated for youngsters arrived at an airport within the state.

The boy has been present process therapy in Sao Paulo for a genetic illness that requires him to put on braces on his legs. His father Jurandir Siridiwe, a tribal chief, watched his son’s immunization broadcast by way of the web.

“If we had began instantly after Anvisa (the well being regulator) accredited in December the Pfizer vaccine for teenagers of this age, at this time all the kids in Brazil would have been vaccinated with no less than one dose,” Gov. João Doria mentioned on the occasion.

The Well being Ministry really helpful an eight-week interval between kids’s first and second doses of the Pfizer shot, slightly than the three weeks really helpful by the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

In Sao Paulo state, meaning kids who're scheduled to return to in-person courses at public colleges on Feb. 2 will achieve this earlier than receiving a second dose.

Whereas kids are a lot much less seemingly than adults to undergo extreme sickness or die from COVID-19, advocates say vaccinating them can decrease the virus’ unfold of their households and society as a complete.

Brazil has begun experiencing a surge in COVID-19 circumstances and Well being Minister Marcelo Queiroga mentioned Thursday that the extremely transmissible omicron variant has change into the dominant pressure in Brazil.

By Friday afternoon, solely six of Brazil’s 27 states had acquired vaccines for youngsters. The Well being Ministry’s press workplace cited logistical hiccups and instructed The Related Press that the doses can be delivered to the remaining states over the weekend. Most of them will start vaccinating children on Monday.

Brazil has about 20 million kids aged 5 to 11, in accordance with the ministry.