In a follow-up on the yellow fever vaccination campaign in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Health epidemiological bulletin published last week, the three states of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and São Paulo are still well below the target of 95 percent.
The coverage of the current campaign in Rio de Janeiro is 40.9%, Bahia is 55% and São Paulo is 52.4% of the target population vaccinated. The vaccine is available at health clinics. The period of discharge of the disease continues until May.
In all, the campaign in these states seeks to immunize 23.8 million people.
The data refers to the 77 cities that were part of the campaign with fractionation strategy and the expansion to another 52 municipalities of São Paulo.
These municipalities should continue to vaccinate the population with the fractionated dose, which guarantees the same protection of the standard dose, and expand vaccine coverage to prevent new cases of yellow fever in the country.
As vaccination continues to be the most important tool to prevent the emergence of cases next summer, the entire Brazilian territory will be a recommended area for vaccination against yellow fever. The expansion was announced by the Ministry of Health in March this year. It will be done gradually and completed by April 2019.
The measure is preventive and aims to anticipate protection against disease for the entire population in case of an increase in the area of circulation of the virus. Currently, some states in the Northeast and part of the South and Southeast are not part of the vaccine recommendation areas.
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From July 1, 2017 until April 10, the Ministry of Health registered 1,127 confirmed cases of yellow fever. In total, 5,052 cases were reported, of which 2,806 were already discarded and 1,119 were still under investigation. Last year, considering the same monitoring period (July / 2016 to April 10, 2017) were 712 cases and 228 confirmed deaths.
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