O Ministry of Health announced that all priority groups should be called from this Saturday, 18, to receive the reinforcement of the bivalent vaccine against covid-19.
Some groups were not covered in the early days of the National Movement for Vaccination. Measure valid for all states and municipalities in Brazil.
To receive the immunizer, you must have completed the primary scheme with single doses and respect a minimum period of four months since the last dose received.
So far, 4.1 million people have taken the booster with bivalent vaccines, according to the Ministry.
Which vaccine is being applied?
The vaccine applied in this new stage is bivalentthat is, it protects against more than one strain of the virus. For this, mRNA technology with two genetic codes is used. In the case of Pfizerthe code of the original strain of the coronavirus and that of the Omicron variant, which is the predominant one in recent infections worldwide, is being used.
Do bivalent vaccines have side effects?
Each and every vaccine can generate some side effect and there’s no need to worry, point out doctors and scientists. The most common are headache, pain at the application site, fever and fatigue.
As vaccines that use adenovirus technology usually cause a greater reaction from the body because it “simulates” as if the body is being infected by the coronavirus. But the symptoms pass within 48 hours.
I have symptoms, what to do?
The doctors’ recommendation is that, if the symptoms are very strong, use medication to control fever and pain. O use of anti-inflammatory drugs is not recommended because it can disrupt the body’s response to the natural inflammatory process in creating antibodies against the coronavirus.
Who can receive bivalent vaccine?
Seniors over 60 years old, people over 12 years old with immunosuppression, indigenous people, residents of long-stay institutions and employees of these institutions are summoned. The federal government also intends to make an active search for people who are overdue for doses.
The recommendation of the Ministry of Health is to apply this dose only as reinforcement. With that, those who haven’t taken any vaccine need to have at least the first two doses. Those who received the third or fourth dose can directly take the new updated bivalent vaccine. The interval between the last application and this one is four months.
What are the priority groups?
- People over 60 years old;
- Disabled people;
- Indigenous, riverside and quilombola communities;
- Residents in long-stay institutions and employees;
- Solid organ or bone marrow transplants;
- People with HIV;
- People with active systemic immune-mediated rheumatic diseases and using a dose of prednisone or equivalent > 10 mg/day or receiving pulse therapy with corticosteroids and/or cyclophosphamide;
- People using immunosuppressants or with primary immunodeficiencies;
- People with hematological malignancies, such as leukemias, lymphomas and myelodysplastic syndromes;
- Cancer patients who underwent chemotherapy or radiotherapy in the last six months.
