Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro himself refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19 (File)
Brasilia:
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will not give his 11-year-old daughter a COVID-19 vaccine, he said on Monday, maintaining his staunch anti-vaccination stance that has drawn criticism from health experts community and type in his poll numbers.
The right-wing leader added that the nation’s Health Minister, Marcelo Queiroga, will reveal on January 5 how Brazil will carry out its campaign to vaccinate children against the coronavirus between 5 and 11 years old, approved earlier this month.
“Children don’t die in a way that justifies vaccinating children,” he told reporters in the southern state of Santa Catarina.
Childhood vaccinations are a hot topic in Brazil, where Bolsonaro’s core supporters have fervently opposed the measure, even as the vast majority of the population is in favor of a vaccine.
In October, national health regulator Anvisa said its workers had received death threats related to the issue. When Anvisa approved footage for children aged 5 to 11, Bolsonaro controversially said he wanted to make public the names of the officials who signed the approvals.
On December 23, Queiroga, Minister of Health, further controversially said that the number of children dying from COVID-19 did not justify emergency authorization. He then said that children’s coronavirus vaccines require a doctor’s prescription, something the state’s health ministers immediately objected to.
“I talked to Queiroga about this. On the 5th, he should publish a note on how childhood immunizations should be done,” Bolsonaro said. “I hope there is no judicial intervention. I hope. Since my daughter is not vaccinated, let me make that clear.”
A government coronavirus advisory body has released a note stating that 301 children between the ages of 5 and 11 have died from COVID-19 in Brazil.
Bolsonaro himself has refused to be vaccinated and has repeatedly questioned the safety and effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
