Starting this Monday, the 18th, the State Department of Health (SES-SP) is promoting the Multivaccination Campaign against preventable diseases in public primary, primary and secondary schools. This vaccination strategy, which runs until April 19, seeks to expand vaccination coverage for children and adolescents, in partnership with the State Department of Education (Seduc) and with the municipalities that will be executing the action.
Focusing on children and adolescents under 15 years of age, unvaccinated or with incomplete schedules according to the Vaccination Calendar, vaccination teams will go to schools to expand access and encourage the culture of immunization, in addition to disseminating educational health actions among students.
“Our focus is to increase vaccination coverage, reduce the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases and prevent the reintroduction of eliminated or controlled diseases”, highlights Ligia Nerger, director of Immunization at SES-SP. The vaccination action offers vaccines from the National Immunization Program (PNI) calendar.
Tatiana Lang, director of the SES-SP Epidemiological Surveillance Center, highlighted the importance of vaccination. “This strategy is very important, because in addition to strengthening the links between education and health for the development of actions related to vaccination, it aims to reduce the risk of the population becoming ill due to vaccine-preventable diseases by checking the vaccination status”, she highlighted. .
The campaign hopes to reach children and adolescents under the age of 15 enrolled in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools. According to the IBGE 2022 census, the State of São Paulo has around 7.9 million children and adolescents between 0 and 14 years old, however, those who have pending or overdue doses will be vaccinated. Diseases considered vaccine-preventable are those that can be prevented through vaccination, such as polio, measles, rubella, mumps, yellow fever, hepatitis B, tetanus, among others.
To ensure prevention against these diseases, it is essential that the child’s parents or guardians send the vaccination booklet to the school institution, allowing the vaccination status to be assessed, in addition to signing the “Vaccination Consent Form” for any necessary updates.
Vaccines will be available for Poliomyelitis, Meningococcal C Conjugate, MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella), Yellow Fever, Pentavalent (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and invasive diseases caused by Haemophilus influenzae b), HPV (between 9 and 14 years old age), Meningococcal ACWY and Covid-19.
Vaccination in 2023
During the Multivaccination Campaign, which took place in October and November last year, more than 1.7 million children and adolescents under 15 years of age attended Basic Health Units (UBSs) to assess their vaccination status. Of the total, more than 1 million were sent to be immunized according to the vaccination schedule.
Vaccine 100 doubts
The Government of SP, through the State Department of Health, created the “Vacina 100 Doubts” portal with the 100 most frequently asked questions about vaccination in internet search engines. The tool clarifies issues such as side effects, vaccine effectiveness, vaccine-preventable diseases and the dangers of not being immunized. Access is available at the link.
