More than two thousand elderly people in the Bragança region refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19, being the population group with the highest rate of refusal of vaccines in this region, the health authorities responsible for this process revealed Thursday.
Since the vaccination process began, health services have recorded 2,054 refusals, out of 131,694 registered users in 12 district municipalities, explained Lusa Manuela Santos, Primary Health Care Director for the Local Health Unit (ULS) from the Northeast. .
The age group with the highest number of rejections is 65, with 522 users, but there are also 95, specifically 69, and four 105 years whose services have not yet succeeded in immunization, according to data provided to Lusa.
More than 2,000 elderly people “don’t want” to be vaccinated, a resistance that has an explanation, in the opinion of Primary Care Nurse Director Adelaide Baptista, because they are “people accustomed to adversity” who see nothing in covid-19 worse than other experiences they have had.
The same resistance, the two officials explained, occurs with other vaccines, such as tetanus, where they can’t convince them to switch to taking it, and often, they can only give it to older people when they find it in the. Health centers or hospital services for other reasons.
Healthcare teams, who are working to implement the coronavirus vaccination plan in the field, ensure that they will continue efforts to convince these people of the benefits of the vaccine against the disease caused by the coronavirus responsible for the pandemic.
Manuela Santos understands that the information that reaches people is contradictory due to the multiplicity of opinions surrounding the topic and that it does not always help those in the field who are trying to clarify people.
In addition to the self-scheduling system, it is the health centers that contact users to schedule the vaccination and I’ve heard from some who don’t want AstraZeneca and Janssen, they even explain that there are four vaccines authorized in Portugal, and these are these two, that they are safe.”
“It’s about the communication being made about them,” Manuela Santos understands.
In total, as of July 28, 164,631 doses were administered in the Bragança region, corresponding to more than 92 thousand first doses and more than 72 thousand two doses.
More than half of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the universe that serves as the basis of health, the National Register of Users (RNU), which has 131,694 registered people in the Bragança region.
The number is much higher than the resident population revealed by the 2021 census, which shows that 122,833 people live in this area.
The Director of Primary Health Care explained that the number of users refers to all those registered in health centers.
Some, such as teachers or the police, may not reside permanently in the area, but a family doctor continues to be present locally.
The official did not rule out that these numbers include possible deaths, as families usually do not communicate with health centers and updates made through a citizen’s card do not cover health.
The COVID-19 vaccination plan helps to update the information in the contacts with users.
Among the absent registrants, there are at least 4,248 people who have already been contacted to receive the vaccine and who have reported being abroad.
These, according to the director, are the “hangers,” whose processes are left to wait until they decide where and when to inoculate.
Among the refusals, suspensions and other reasons, 9,307 users have already been contacted, but it has not yet been possible to vaccinate, out of 23,584 not yet vaccinated in the Bragança region.
In this number are also those who wait six months, or three months in the case of home users, after they have contracted covid-19 or tested positive for the infection and that “there are only 36 people”.
The director emphasized that the region has a “good coverage rate” and the capacity, in the vaccination centers spread across all municipalities, to vaccinate the entire population, but the speed depends, as in the whole country, on the availability of vaccines.
The Bragança region recorded 308 active cases in the latest report issued by the health authorities on Wednesday.
On the same day, five people were admitted to the three area hospitals in the wards and one in continuing care, with an average age of over 75, according to data from ULS in the Northeast.
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