Parents praise vaccination against flu and covid-19 in schools in Curitiba

Parents praise vaccination against flu and covid-19 in schools in Curitiba

Heloísa flinched when the syringe came towards her. Was fast. The 3-year-old girl received the flu vaccine. She didn’t cry. “I calm my daughter down first,” says team leader Danielle Vaz Naumiuk.

Heloísa’s dose was one of 66 administered to 29 children by the Concórdia Health Unit team at the Municipal Center for Early Childhood Education (CMEI) Olga Benário Prestes, in Pinheirinho.

The action is the result of a partnership between the municipal departments of Health (SMS) and Education (SME) for the so-called “extramural vaccination”, a technical way of saying that if children do not go to the health unit to be vaccinated, the vaccine goes to them.

“It makes life easier”, defines businessman Deivid Lourenço dos Santos, who had gone to pick up Otávio, aged 3, and took the opportunity to immunize his son against flu and Covid-19. “He doesn’t even enter the health center, he gets scared. It’s better here,” he reveals.

“Vaccination in schools is an additional strategy to facilitate access to the protection that vaccines offer. Whoever loves, gets vaccinated”, reinforces the municipal secretary of Health, Beatriz Battistella. A strategy that has been important in updating the vaccination calendar.

Since the start of the campaign, on March 18, SMS has evaluated more than 61,000 vaccination records of children enrolled in CMEIs and elementary schools in the city to check for overdue doses. Almost 14 thousand people have already been vaccinated, including children, family members and education workers.

“Caring for children and students involves not only pedagogy and the qualification of education spaces, but also their well-being and health”, says the municipal secretary of Education, Maria Sílvia Bacila.

Zé Gotinha

The environment created by the CMEI Olga Benário team with health professionals helped to reduce some of the tension that surrounds these moments. Public employee Emiliano Livson took 3-year-old Frederico to play with Zé Gotinha before entering the breastfeeding room, which became the vaccination room.

“He sees that his classmates are also going to get the vaccine and loses his fear a little,” says Livson. He failed to agree with Frederico: the boy started screaming after two injections against Influenza and Covid-19. “But we leave feeling relieved”, adds the father.