Vaccination status of a state in northeast Brazil

In Brazil, the vaccination campaigns, has being happening for more than two decades and are promoted by the National Program on Immunization (PNI), which over the years has earned international recognition for its success at the eradication and control of vaccination preventable diseases. Considering the official efforts to expand the immunization coverage in our country, it becomes important to obtain concrete data on the vaccination status of children of all socioeconomic strata¹. This paper aims to study the vaccination status of children in the state of Maranhão considering the socio-economic profile of the population under study. This is a descriptive study conducted from June to December 2007, where the sample was processed by conglomerates in 28 municipalities of Maranhão. A representative sample of the state has 1711 children from zero to five years old. It was observed that the majority (56.63%) of the children belonged to families of low income, and a bigger number of mothers (63.8%) have up to 8 years of study. The overall immunization coverage in relation to the past decade has increased considerably, but are still higher the percentage of abstention when compared to national data. About 60% on average took the vaccines in arrears, meaning that the child has remained exposed for long periods. It was observed that the coverage is heterogeneous among the basic vaccines such as BCG and against Hepatitis B (98.77% and 94.44% respectively) are close to the goal, others such as yellow fever and against rotavirus (87.53% and 18.35% respectively), are far from achieving it. The percentage of 100% - Operating basic goal of PNI - was not hit by any of the vaccines in our territory, despite government efforts to hold periodic campaigns to vaccinate in the entire country, which may reflect the precarious socio-economic condition found.