Municipal officials in São Paulo announced Brazil’s largest city has vaccinated its entire population aged 12 to 17 with two shots of Covid vaccine. The rollout for teenagers began on August 18, 2021, and initially targeted immunosuppressed people and those with other preexisting conditions, gradually expanding to other groups.
By mid-October, all of the city’s estimated 845,000 teens aged 12 to 17 had taken a first dose, but the administration of additional doses had stalled.
At that point, City Hall began a more aggressive vaccination program, taking immunization booths to schools. Teens in Brazil can take the Pfizer and Sinovac vaccines, which were greenlit by regulators in June 2021 and January 2022, respectively.
Just 0.3 percent of teenagers have taken third vaccine doses so far.
The federal government has not been supportive of vaccinating teens. In September of last year, Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga announced that the government was removing teenagers without prior health conditions from the national vaccination plan — citing false information to justify the move, which he was forced to reconsider.
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