A National Movement for Vaccination

Feb 2022

  Vivian Mannheimer| HCS-Manguinho’s Blog The Brazilian Ministry of Health recently launched the National Movement for Vaccination, intending to resume high vaccination coverage in the country.  The former Brazilian government neglected vaccination policies, and negationism and misinformation may have affected the confidence of many Brazilians in vaccines. With the motto “Vaccine is life. Vaccine is for everyone”, the mobilization includes vaccination against Covid-19 and other immunizers from the National Vaccination Calendar in several stages.

According to information from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, even though Brazil is considered an international reference in this matter, the country has experienced setbacks in this field in recent years, which increases the risk of reintroduction of diseases that have already been eliminated, such as polio. PAHO Representative in Brazil, Socorro Gross, stated that “Brazil’s national immunization program is one of the most comprehensive that we have in our region of the Americas. The first step of this movement was the introduction of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, a so-called second-generation vaccine that includes a component of the original virus strain to provide broad protection against COVID-19 and a component of the omicron variant. HCS-Manguinhos has published several articles on vaccines, vaccination campaigns, and disease eradication in Latin America. Among the topics covered, we can mention the vaccination campaigns and public policies that eradicated polio and smallpox, research for developing a vaccine against Malaria, and the international circulation of knowledge that favored the development of vaccines in Brazil. The race for a vaccine The disputed race for the vaccine against the new coronavirus is the topic explored by Marcos Cueto, scientific editor of HCS-Manguinhos, in the Editor’s note of its latest issue. The establishment of the Manguinhos laboratory, 1894-1902. Matheus Alves da Silva analyzes the 1900 establishment of the Federal Serum Therapy Institute of Manguinhos, Fiocruz, in Rio de Janeiro, focusing on the international circulation of knowledge.

In the first half of 1951, the last case of smallpox was registered in Mexico. The investigation note “The phase after the eradication of smallpox in Mexico, 1952-1977 ” by Nydia Aguirre-Bolaños proposes research on the stage after the declaration of the disease eradication in the country. In A battle won: the elimination of poliomyelitis in Cuba Enrique Beldarraín Chaple, professor at the Medical University of La Habana, discusses the central role of the state in the elimination of polio in the country and aims to reconstruct the history of the disease in Cuba until the first National Campaign of Vaccination Antipolio (1962 ) and it also analyzes the continuity of the annual vaccination campaigns has the certification of their elimination (1994). Breakthroughs towards a malaria vaccine is a testimony by scientist Ruth Nussenzweig, C.V. Starr Professor at New York University School of Medicine, about her work to develop an antimalarial vaccine. She traces some of the stages her research has passed in her testimony.

The article Control, containment, and health education in the smallpox-vaccination campaigns in Mexico in the 1940s, by“ Agostoni, Claudia. “Médicos, campañas y vacunas la viruela y la cultura de su prevención en México 1870-1952.” Claudia Agostoni, analyzes why a uniform and coordinated vaccination method was adopted to counter the outbreaks of this endemic disease, especially in central Mexico and the reasons why smallpox vaccination was considered critical to establishing a culture of prevention.

 In Smallpox eradication, laboratory visits, and a touch of tourism: travel notes of a Canadian scientist in Brazil, Steven Palmer, Gilberto Hochman, and Danieli Arbex present the travel notes diary of Canadian scientist Robert J. Wilson when he visited Brazil in April 1967 during the Smallpox Eradication Programme run by the WHO. Wilson’s report makes it possible to reflect on the smallpox eradication campaign in Brazil and the Canada-Brazil cooperation to improve the quality of the smallpox vaccine.

A história da imunização no Brasil: o presente no passado Veja o que HCS-Manguinhos publicou desde 1996, com destaque a suplemento temático de 2003

Covid-19 in HCS-Manguinhos:

The disputed race for the vaccine against the new coronavirus is explored by Marcos Cueto, scientific editor of HCS-Manguinhos, in the Editor’s note of HCSM’s recent issue. According to Cueto, this race reveals the importance of technology in the battle against the pandemic, but a look at past epidemic outbreaks has shown that the fight against diseases needs to consider social and institutional factors. Covid-19 and racism in Peru Researchers José Ragas and Patricia Palma examine three major epidemics (yellow fever, the bubonic plague, and covid-19) to demonstrate the current and somewhat surprising shift in negative attitudes toward the Chinese community. Historia en tiempos pandémicos: covid-19 en Latinoamérica Teniendo como marco la trágica presencia de covid-19, historiadores de México, Argentina y Brasil realizan reflexiones en este texto sobre el contexto de la pandemia, así como su relación con precariedades sanitarias institucionales, estigmas persistentes y desigualdades sociales pasadas. Colombia y la instrumentalización de la pandemia de COVID-19 El investigador Jorge Márquez Valderrama, de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, analiza las concepciones positivas y negativas de la instrumentalización de la epidemia en las esferas empresarial, educativa y política. Chile y la pandemia de covid-19: memoria de la medicina social y crisis neoliberal En la sección Testimonios COVID-19 (HCSM v.29, Jan-Mar 2022), Marcelo Sánchez Delgado, Profesor asistente, Centro de Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos / Universidad de Chile, analiza la pandemia en el país en el contexto de crisis neoliberal. La covid-19 en Cuba seis meses después El presente artículo, de Enrique Beldarraín Chaple, pretende reflexionar sobre el comportamiento de la covid-19 en Cuba y las medidas tomadas para su control. Para ello se revisaron las informaciones oficiales del Ministerio de Salud Pública (Minsap), artículos de prensa, así como artículos científicos publicados sobre el tema. China, COVID-19 and the History of Science Xingbo Luo: “Although the concepts and methods of Digital Humanities have been spread in China for a long time, this field has never developed as rapidly as in the past year.” Médicos, enfermeras y pacientes: entre la incertidumbre y las carencias en tiempo de COVID-19 en México La investigadora Claudia Agostoni, de la UNAM, reflexiona sobre los problemas crónicos del sistema de salud de Mexico en el enfrentamiento a la Covid-19. Coronavirus and History – la pandemia de Covid-19 en la perspectiva de historiadores de diferentes países. See all articles and stories about vaccination already published in HCSM: The Politics of Vaccination – Jaime Benchimol, a member of our scientific editorial council, wrote the article about the yellow fever vaccine in Brazil. Julie Laplante; Julie Bruneau, Aperçu d’une anthropologie du vaccin: regards sur l’éthique d’une pratique humanitaire. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos [online]. 2003, vol.10, suppl.2. Las campañas de vacunación contra la viruela en México durante la década de 1940 El artículo examina algunas transformaciones por las que atravesaron los programas mexicanos de vacunación al establecerse la Campaña Nacional contra la Viruela. El devenir histórico de la poliomielitis en la Argentina Reseña de Fausto Gabriel Ferreyra sobre la investigación histórica de Daniela Testa acerca de la poliomielitis en Argentina. Aguirre-Bolaños, Nydia. La etapa posterior a la erradicación de la viruela en México, 1952-1977. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Set 2018, vol.25, no.3. Chaple, Enrique Beldarraín. Una batalla ganada: la eliminación de la poliomielitis en Cuba. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Set 2015, vol.22, no.3 Altink, Henrice. The black scourge? Race and the Rockefeller Foundation’s tuberculosis commission in interwar Jamaica. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Oct 2017, vol.24, no.4. Nussenzweig, Ruth Sonntag. Breakthroughs towards a malaria vaccine. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, June 2011, vol.18, no.2 Palmer, Steven, Hochman, Gilberto and Arbex, Danieli. Smallpox eradication, laboratory visits, and a touch of tourism: travel notes of a Canadian scientist in Brazil. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2010, vol.17, no.3. Hochman, Gilberto and Palmer, Steven Smallpox eradication and Brazil: an interview with Donald A. Henderson. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, 2010, vol.17, no.3. Cueto, Marcos. Covid-19 and the race for a vaccine Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Set 2020, vol.27, no.3.