The first batch of dengue vaccines was delivered to Rio Grande do Sul this Tuesday (30/04), with 31.5 thousand doses. They will be distributed by the State Department of Health (SES) on Thursday (05/02) to the six municipalities in the Metropolitan Region listed by the Ministry of Health: Porto Alegre, Viamão, Alvorada, Gravataí, Cachoeirinha and Glorinha.
The target audience for vaccination will be children and adolescents aged 10 to 14. This first delivery represents 25% of the total of 126 thousand doses that the State should receive for these cities.
As informed by representatives of the National Immunization Program (PNI) to technicians from the State Health Surveillance Center (Cevs) in a meeting held this Monday (29/04) to plan the vaccination action, the additional doses will be sent in the upcoming shipments. As doses are available in the national stock, the necessary amounts will then be supplemented for these municipalities initially covered and distribution will be expanded to other municipalities in the State.
This entire amount will be allocated to the first dose for the priority public. For the second dose of the scheme, within three months, the amount to be received by the State will depend on the registration of the first doses in the National Immunization Program system.
Logistics
The doses (trade name Qdenga, from the Japanese manufacturer Takeda Pharma) were delivered in the early afternoon of Tuesday to SES, next to the State Central for Storage and Distribution of Immunobiologicals (Ceadi). Distribution to municipalities, after the conference and separation work, is scheduled for this Thursday. On that date, the municipalities covered will be able to withdraw their units from Ceadi, in the case of the Capital, or from the 1st Regional Health Coordination, in the case of the others.
Check below the list of cities with the doses they will receive in this first batch and the total expected to cover the first dose for the population aged 10 to 14 years old.
Municipality: shipment of 04/30 (total doses planned)
Porto Alegre: 18,225 (72,898)
Viamão: 3,746 (14,982)
Dawn: 3,246 (12,985)
Gravataí: 4,106 (16,425)
Cachoeirinha: 2,095 (8,379)
Glorinha: 116 (463)
Total: 31,534 (126,132)
Criteria for defining cities
The six cities that are the first in the State to implement dengue vaccination were selected by the Ministry of Health based on the criteria of the history of dengue cases over the last ten years. More precisely 2013 to 2022, as the strategy was defined before the end of last year.
According to the Technical Report of the national vaccination strategy, “considering the continental dimensions of Brazil, the heterogeneity of transmission in each Region, and the limited number of vaccine doses available for the year 2024, large municipalities (larger population) were selected or equal to 100 thousand inhabitants) with high dengue transmission in the last 10 years, including the other municipalities in their health regions, regardless of population size, ordered by the predominance of the DENV-2 serotype (recent reemergence) and the largest number of cases in monitoring 2023/2024 (Epidemiological Week 27 of 2023 to Week 02 of 2024)”.
Therefore, the city of Glorinha was included in RS, which even with a population below 100 thousand inhabitants was included in the selection because it is part of the same Health Region as other municipalities with a higher population and higher incidence of dengue in the period. The ranking of this selection of municipalities, however, was not disclosed and shared by the Ministry of Health to the states.
Priority group
According to the definition of the Ministry of Health, children and adolescents between 10 and 14 years old will be vaccinated, an age group that, nationally, has the highest number of hospitalizations for dengue in recent years: 16,400 from January 2019 to November 2023.
This manufacturer’s vaccine is not authorized by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) for people over 60 years of age, the population that has the highest number of deaths in RS.
PHOTO AND VIDEO GALLERY (Flickr)
