BRAZIL. KAZINFORM Brazil begins administering a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine this Monday, February 27 in the country. According to the Ministry of Health, the vaccine improves immunity against the original virus strain and the Omicron variant and has a protection and efficacy profile similar to that of monovalent vaccines.
“The monovalent vaccine, as the call suggests, consists of a single type of virus that causes COVID. It was originally created with the so-called ancestral virus, the first to appear in China in late 2019. Thus, all the vaccines we had and used until now were monovalent, regardless of the manufacturing laboratory,” explained the director of the Brazilian Vaccine Society, Juárez Cunha, reports Agência Brasil.
Initially, the vaccine will only be administered in so-called threat groups. According to the ministry, the vaccination will be as follows: in phase 1, other people over 70 years of age, immunocompromised, indigenous, citizens and quilombolas; in phase 2, other people aged 60 to 69; in phase 3, pregnant and postpartum women; and in phase 4, fitness professionals.
“According to the observations made those 3 years of the pandemic, those are the other people who have suffered the most from the disease,” Cunha said.
In Brazil, two bivalent vaccines, either produced through Pfizer, won approval from Brazil’s national drug regulator, Anvisa, for emergency use. They are indicated as single reinforcement in young people and adults, two months after the end of vaccination cycle number one, or as a last booster.
Monovalent vaccines against COVID-19 are still available in the Basic Health Units (BHU) for the general population and are classified as “highly effective against the disease”, ensuring a high degree of immunity and preventing mild, severe cases and deaths. caused by the disease, the ministry said.
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