On April 22, the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, signed the ordinance that ends the Public Health Emergency of National Importance due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in force since February 2020. This ordinance contradicts the recent decision of the Organization World Health Organization (WHO), which announced that Covid-19 continues to be a "Public Health Emergency of International Importance". In fact, it is a political decision, without a scientific basis, along the lines of the false dichotomy between public health and the economy. After all, 2022 is an election year.
The Minister never occupied the national radio and TV network in prime time to guide the Brazilian population on the importance of getting vaccinated, vaccinating our children and respecting non-pharmacological measures to combat Covid-19. In fact, during the pandemic, it was very difficult to fight against the process of misinformation and dissemination of fake news, especially when coming from the official bodies of the Palácio do Planalto, which at various times recommended guidelines of an ideological nature, in irresponsible episodes, which attacked the health of the Brazilian population.
Brazil will never forget the enormous gap in combating the pandemic, which led to more than 663 thousand deaths of Brazilians due to Covid-19, a number that certainly does not take into account a high rate of underreporting. If it weren't for pressure from organized sectors of society, the governors, states and municipalities who, thanks to the STF, took the lead in combating the pandemic, if it weren't for scientific and medical societies, health professionals, the SUS, universities and public research institutes, such as Butantan and Fiocruz, and a large part of the Brazilian press, the situation would be much worse.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, authorities linked to the GF have ignored the seriousness of the pandemic, often taking a stance against lockdown, quarantine, physical distancing and use of masks measures. The current President of the Republic (PR) said that it was just a little flu and that the destructive power of the virus was being overstated by the media. A certain federal deputy linked to the GF, jokingly known as “terraplana”, stated that the Coronavirus would kill fewer people in Brazil than the flu in Rio Grande do Sul, which killed 950 people in that state. Member of this “parallel cabinet”, created to advise (sic) the GF in handling the Covid-19 crisis, the same deputy also defended the – mistaken – thesis of herd immunity without vaccines.
Politicians, religious leaders, pseudoscientists, doctors (sic) who do not understand science and far-right journalists defended the Covid kit for early treatment, with hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, chloroquine and azithromycin, medicines that science has proven to be ineffective against Covid, and still with the potential to generate adverse effects. The Covid kit proved to be a gigantic hoax in the service of a political banner and generic companies. The PR, who mocked people dying without oxygen in Manaus, said that “the number of deaths from Covid was overestimated”, that “he couldn’t do anything because he wasn’t a gravedigger”, that “mourns all the dead, but it is everyone’s fate,” he ran after an emu at Palácio da Alvorada with a box of chloroquine in his hands! Who doesn't remember the PR phrases: “Brazil has to stop being a country of sissies”; “There are some idiots there who still stay at home to this day”; “the guy who gets into the vaccine pile is an idiot” and “those on the right take chloroquine and those on the left take tubaine”?
Since the beginning of the health crisis, there has been a lack of diagnostic tests and we have had difficulties importing inputs for vaccines. Research institutions carried out genomic surveillance of the variants and public universities made an extraordinary response on several fronts. But this was never part of a GF strategy.
We cannot forget that, due to the GF's negligence in combating the pandemic and the lack of access to official death data, a press consortium was formed to bring correct information to the Brazilian population.
After the alleged hacker attack on the MS website, at the beginning of December 2021, the Brazilian population was without access to updated death numbers by age group and epidemiological indicators for a long time. They campaigned against CoronaVac, which they called “vachina”, ignored Anvisa's approval of the Pfizer vaccine, delayed purchasing pediatric vaccines and fueled conspiracy theories that the vaccines were neither safe nor effective. And there’s that other phrase from the PR, about the Pfizer vaccine: “if you turn into an alligator, it’s your problem”!
As soon as Anvisa approved Pfizer's pediatric vaccine, the PR questioned the interest of the Agency and the “people who are obsessed with vaccines”, threatened to disclose the names of the agency's technicians who approved the vaccine, and stated that the deaths of children due to Covid-19 were insignificant in Brazil, that vaccines transmit the HIV virus and suggested that parents should talk to “their neighbors” to decide whether or not to vaccinate their children.
This same Minister of Health said that “child deaths were within a level that did not imply emergency decisions”. He also lied when he stated that there were around four thousand deaths with proof of a causal relationship with the application of vaccines against Covid-19. According to data from epidemiological bulletins 44, 92 and 109 from the Ministry of Health (MS), since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 3.053 deaths from Covid-19 in the 0-19 age group, with 929 deaths in the age group less than one year old, 500 deaths in the age group of 1 to 5 years and 1.624 deaths in the age group of 6 to 19 years.
According to Special Epidemiological Bulletin, from the Ministry of Health (MS), no child or adolescent died as a result of vaccines against Covid-19, among the millions of Brazilians vaccinated. The MS investigated the occurrence of 3.463 cases of adverse events reported by states and municipalities, which resulted in 38 deaths in the 5-18 age group and ruled out any relationship with vaccines. All cases of death were investigated and the possibility of vaccines being related to the cause of death was ruled out. This information is on pages 111 and 112 of the Bulletin 109. As of April 28, 04, 2022 million doses of vaccines had been administered in the country, with 427.158.915 million children aged 11.764.354-5 taking the first dose and 11 children taking the second dose. For more information, read here.
In January of this year, we had to deal with a public hearing organized by the MS to discuss vaccination for children aged 5-11, which further delayed the start of childhood vaccination, placing respected scientists and doctors on an equal footing with charlatans who they ignore scientific evidence, defend an anti-vaccine political banner and the irresponsible cheating of the use of rectal ozone therapy to combat Covid. This public hearing, in addition to scaring parents and guardians of children, helped the Ministry of Health decide that childhood vaccination would not be mandatory and that parents should sign a consent form authorizing the vaccination of their children. To avoid mandatory requirements, the Ministry of Health included vaccines only in the National Plan for the Operationalization of Vaccination against Covid-19 (PNO), arguing that this measure does not violate the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA).
Pediatric vaccines should be incorporated into the National Immunization Program (PNI). With this, they would automatically enter the basic childhood vaccination calendar, being considered mandatory. Even though we respect and defend freedom of expression, we cannot give space in the debate to define public policies to doctors (sic) and pseudoscientists who do not honor their diploma and are now in the ranks of the anti-vaccine movement, disseminating disinformation that kills.
Another regrettable episode was the creation of the Anti-Vaccine Reporting Hotline by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights (MMFDH), to receive complaints from people opposed to vaccines against Covid-19. This Ministry also released a technical note against the creation of the vaccination passport and against the mandatory vaccination of children against Covid-19, another setback and an aberration against the health of the Brazilian population. It was necessary for Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, from the STF, to prohibit the use of Dial 100.
On 20/01/2022, two Ministers of State, including that of Health, used public money to seek political benefits by visiting the family of a child in Lençóis Paulista (SP), in an attempt to link the adverse effect of the child with the vaccine. PR himself called the child's family, according to the press. It was duly proven that the child had a congenital disease and that the episode had nothing to do with the vaccine. Did these same authorities visit or make calls to some of the families of the more than 3 children and adolescents who have proven to have died from Covid-19?
And technical note nº 2/2022, signed by the Secretary of Science and Technology of the MS, published in the Official Gazette of the Union on 21/01/2022, which rejected the conclusions of the Working Group (GT) established by the MS itself, approved by the CONITEC in SUS? The GT showed that the medicines in the Covid kit - chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin - do not work against Covid, but, surprisingly, the then Secretary refused the scientific evidence and distorted the note saying that chloroquine was safe and effective against Covid- 19, but not vaccines! Surreal!
On 14/02/2022, the Federal Senate hosted a session with a parade of lies and misinformation about vaccines against Covid-19. Some politicians, who don't understand anything about science, joined some anti-science doctors (sic), the same ones at the public hearing on 04/01/2022, and stated, without presenting any type of scientific evidence, that vaccines against Covid- 19 can cause cancer. It was another show of horrors and trickery promoted in broad daylight and without any type of punishment. Today, these same doctors are getting rich with the lie of “detox” treatments to “eliminate the toxic components of Covid-19 vaccines”. It's like Tom Jobim said: Brazil is not for beginners.
As scientists, we have the responsibility to bring the best scientific information, clarify the doubts of parents and guardians of children, fight against the spreaders of lies and against the denialism and intellectual obscurantism that have taken over this country.
Science has provided an extraordinary response, delivering effective, life-saving vaccines that are taking us out of this serious health crisis. If we had hadIn a national campaign to raise awareness and enlighten parents and guardians by the Ministry of Health, defending the importance of vaccination for the protection of children, we could have already vaccinated more than 95% of children. Mass communication strategies, with clear and objective information, play a fundamental role and should be part of State policy. The MS, historically, has always defended vaccination and health measures to protect the Brazilian population. But today, precisely those who should be defending vaccination and taking the lead in combating fake news are campaigning against childhood vaccination, which is why we have this low adherence.
We cannot admit people dying from Covid-19, while we have safe and effective vaccines that can prevent serious forms of the disease, hospitalizations and deaths. We must vehemently repudiate the attitude of health professionals who take advantage of the credibility of their profession to disseminate news without any scientific basis, with the aim of discouraging the vaccination of children. Unfortunately, we do not have vaccines against the misinformation virus, against fake news, nor against human ignorance and stupidity.
In such an unequal country, there are already many difficulties in accessing public health policies for the most vulnerable populations. Getting vaccinated against Covid-19, in addition to being a health duty, of citizenship and social responsibility, of empathy and respect for life, is an act of resistance.
