Montes Claros Region passes on the first shipment of dengue vaccines to municipalities

The municipalities of Montes Claros, Claro dos Poções, Itacambira, Glaucilândia, Juramento and Mirabela received this Thursday, May 2, 7,083 doses of dengue vaccines, passed on by the Regional Health Superintendence (SRS) of Montes Claros. This is the first shipment of vaccines made available to the North of Minas Gerais by the Ministry of Health (MS) which, in the second half of April, decided to expand vaccination to a further 625 municipalities, in six states.

Until then, in Minas Gerais, immunization of children and adolescents aged between 10 and 14 years covered 22 locations. For the North of Minas, the first 7,083 doses are distributed as follows: Montes Claros (6,577); Mirabela (213); Claro dos Poções (119); Itacambira (69); Juramento (62) and Glaucilândia (43).

With the expansion of vaccination, in addition to municipalities that are part of the SRS Montes Claros area of ​​operation, another 134 locations under the jurisdiction of the regional units of the State Department of Health of Minas Gerais (SES-MG) are benefiting: Belo Horizonte; Colonel Fabriciano; Divinópolis; Valadares Governor; Juiz de Fora; Steps; Patos de Minas; Sete Lagoas and Ubá.

Initially, the vaccine began to be applied to the population in endemic regions, in 521 municipalities. The process was organized with the participation of the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass) and the National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries (Conasems), following the recommendations of the Technical Advisory Chamber on Immunizations (CTAI) and the World Health Organization ( WHO).

The methodology used had as its starting point large municipalities (population equal to or greater than 100 thousand inhabitants) with high dengue transmission in the last ten years. The health regions in which these municipalities are included were selected and ordered according to the following criteria: predominance of serotype 2 (December 2023) and highest number of cases in the 2023/2024 monitoring. As a result, 16 states and the Federal District had municipalities that met the requirements to start vaccination from February this year.

According to the Ministry of Health, defining the target audience and priority regions for immunization was necessary due to the limited capacity to supply doses by the Japanese laboratory Takeda. The first shipment, with around 757 thousand doses, arrived in Brazil on January 20th.

For this year, the Ministry of Health acquired the total amount available from the manufacturer: 5.2 million doses, which will be delivered by December of this year. For 2025, the Ministry of Health has already contracted the purchase of another nine million doses of vaccines.

Strategies
During a videoconference held this Thursday, 2/5, with technical references on immunization of the municipalities that are already receiving vaccines against dengue, the coordinator of the National Immunization Program (PNI) in Minas Gerais, Josiane Dias Gusmão , explained that municipal health departments will be able to define their own strategies for immunizing the public aged 10 to 14 years.

“Each municipality knows its reality and, therefore, can adopt as a strategy the initial vaccination of adolescents aged 10 and 11 and gradually expand the age range”, suggested the coordinator.

In turn, Aline Mendes Vimieiro, technical reference for the SES-MG Immunization Coordination, recalled the importance of municipalities recording the application of vaccine doses in the e-SUS Primary Health Care and in the Information System of the National Immunization Program ( SI-PNI). This will enable the Ministry of Health to monitor the evolution of vaccination in the state and, therefore, enable the transfer of more vaccines to complement the two-dose vaccination schedule, or even expand vaccination to other municipalities. The second dose of the dengue vaccine is administered three months after the first.

Epidemiological scenario
Tuesday, 4/30, during the first meeting of the Event Monitoring Committee (CME), promoted by the Center for Strategic Information on Health Surveillance (Cievs) Regional of Montes Claros, the coordinator of Health Surveillance at SRS, Agna Soares da Silva Menezes, presented updated data on the epidemiological scenario of arboviruses in Minas Gerais. As of Monday, 4/29, the state had 1,328,921 probable cases of dengue, of which 556,480 were confirmed by laboratory tests.

“We are experiencing a dengue epidemic never before experienced in Minas Gerais, with 9,212 serious cases reported or with warning signs; 324 confirmed deaths and 769 under investigation. Regarding chikungunya fever, the state has a high incidence of cases, with 51 confirmed deaths and 34 under investigation”, noted the coordinator.

Specifically in relation to the North of Minas, data updated by SES-MG indicate the notification of 77,652 probable cases of dengue and 18,472 confirmed cases. The region also records 18 deaths from dengue and 29 cases under investigation.

Serotype 1 is the predominant type of dengue in the North of Minas (96% of cases), followed by serotype 2 (4%). However, the Cievs coordinator noted, the circulation of serotype 3 has already been detected in the municipalities of Coração de Jesus and Salinas.

“Vaccination against dengue brings new encouragement to control the disease, but municipalities and the population will not be able to give up on eliminating breeding grounds for the Aedes aegypti mosquito. This is because, in addition to dengue, the vector transmits other diseases, such as chikungunya, zika, Oropouche and Mayaro fever, the latter with cases already detected in the country”, warned Agna Menezes.

By Pedro Ricardo / Photo: Pedro Ricardo