Caarapó/MS - The 16th edition of the Indigenous Peoples´ Vaccination Month (MVPI) ended with a party in the Te´ykue village, of the Caarapó Base Pole, in the Special Sanitary District (DSEI) Mato Grosso do Sul. The event was attended by indigenous people from several other villages, all from the Guarani-Kaiwoá ethnic group.

The MVPI is part of the Vaccination Week of the Americas, established by the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) and occurs annually, as a strategy used to intensify vaccination in indigenous areas in order to increase vaccination coverage, especially in areas of difficult geographical access, offering all the immunobiologicals that make up the National Vaccination Calendar and the vaccine against Covid-19.

The campaign that started on April 18 and ended on May 17 had the goal of reaching 139,234 indigenous people in 75 Base Poles and living in 965 villages. Despite the established period, vaccination for indigenous people occurs all year round and can be found in the 34 DSEI in all regions of the country.

Present at the event, the Special Secretary of Indigenous Health, Reginaldo Ramos Machado, highlighted that the event translates the care of SESAI with the indigenous populations of Brazil.

"Vaccination is an important way of prevention and SESAI does prevention. We can bring more and more health, supporting and being present so that the health of our indigenous people gets better every day. This is the focus of SESAI", emphasized the secretary.

Vaccination rates in the DSEI Mato Grosso do Sul

This year, the Polo Base Caarapó, of the DSEI Mato Grosso do Sul was chosen to carry out the MVPI, reaching 6 villages of the Guarani-Kaiowá ethnic group. In addition to the Covid-19 vaccine, the indigenous people had vaccines from the National Vaccination Calendar available, such as: Measles, Mumps, and Rubella; influenza, and HPV.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 vaccination, the DSEI Mato Grosso do Sul´s team of health professionals was successful in adhering to the campaign and applied the first dose of the immunization to 88.82% of the population assisted by the District. The second dose was applied in 85.20% of the indigenous people, while 62.13% took the booster.

The coordinator of the DSEI Mato Grosso do Sul, Luiz Antônio de Oliveira, recalled the commitment of the teams for these numbers to be in evidence today, which justified the closure of the MVPI in the District.

"It is the work of our team with the community, conducting active search in the villages, not giving up until we see the maximum number of indigenous people vaccinated. To this effort, we owe the closure of the Indigenous Peoples´ Vaccination Month in our area of assistance," he said.

Vaccination in Indigenous Health

In 2021, the Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health (SESAI) closed the fourth semester with 91.3% vaccination coverage of the indigenous population with all the immunizers of the National Immunization Calendar. Among indigenous children over 5 years old, 83.9% have completed the vaccination schedule.

The Influenza vaccine, for example, had higher vaccination coverage in indigenous populations than in the general population. 78.2% of indigenous people were vaccinated while the rate of the general population who took the immunization was 72.8%.

Text: Luiz Cláudio Moreira - NUCOM/SESAI
Translation: Renata Arruda - NUCOM/SESAI