Because of the circulation of yellow fever in the South and Southeast regions of the country, Brazil health officials are encouraging people who live or are going to travel to the region to get vaccinated against the virus.

Image/CIA
Image/CIA

Although the South and Southeast states are already part of the vaccine recommendation area, all states still have coverage below the 95% target. The estimate of unvaccinated persons is about 36.9 million in the Southeast and 13.1 million in the South.

The vaccine against yellow fever is offered in the National Vaccination Calendar and distributed monthly to all states. Since April 2017, Brazil has adopted the single dose schedule of the vaccine, as recommended by the World Health Organization, supported by studies that ensure that one dose is sufficient for lifelong protection. In 2018, 32 million doses of the vaccine were sent to the entire country. By 2019, 1.1 million doses have already been sent to meet state demand.

The target audience for the vaccine are people aged nine months to 59 years who have never been vaccinated or without proof of vaccination. Currently, all the states of the Southeast, South, Midwest and North, besides Maranhão, some municipalities of Bahia, Piauí and Alagoas are part of the recommendation area. For people traveling to areas where the vaccine is recommended, the advice is to take the dose at least 10 days before the trip.

According to the latest epidemiological bulletin, which shows the monitoring from July 2018 to February 7 of this year, 834 suspected cases of yellow fever were reported, 679 of which were discarded, 118 remain under investigation and 37 were confirmed (São Paulo-35 and Paraná-2 states). Of these, nine were deaths.

All deaths occurred in the state of São Paulo, in the municipalities of Caraguatatuba (1), Iporanga (2), Eldorado (3), Jacupiranga (1) and Sete Barras (1). The likely site of infection of one of the deaths remains under investigation.