Decline in immunization coverage in Brazil: the growth of the Anti-Vaccine movement or socio-political specificities?

• In Event: Health Crises and Disease Prevention in Latin America

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the recent growth of the anti-vaccine movement in Brazil during the worldwide popularization of the movement. We investigate the peculiarities of the Brazilian context and the possible consequences for the public health system and the morbimortality rates of the country. In the first part of the paper, we analyse the trends in in MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) immunization coverage based on publicly available data from DATASUS (Brazil’s administrative registration system), from 1998 to 2018. Then, we conduct a literature review about the history of immunization in Brazil and the rising of the anti-vaccine movement. Lastly, we present content analysis from the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, published between the years 2015 and 2018, in order to identify social-political factors used by specialists and government to explain the decrease in vaccine campaigns adhesion. The goal of the analysis is to map the brazilian reality concerning immunization to identify what is unique about Brazil in the context of the anti-vaccine movement. Our hypothesis is that social political factors such as the weakening of public institutions caused by the recent political crises, the large influx of venezuelan immigrants, and the rumor that the MMR vaccine was causing microcephaly (not the Zika outbreak) are more important for the decline in immunization coverage than the anti-vaccine movement, that seems to be incipient.

Authors

• Vanessa Veiga De Oliveira, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG/Brazil)

• Raquel Z Coutinho, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/Cedeplar