Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the vaccination of children 12 months of age and under: an ecological study

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the vaccination numbers for immunization geared toward individuals under 12 months of age in Brazil. This study analyzed the numbers of the nationwide vaccination coverage of ten vaccines present in the calendar from the National Immunization Program (NIP) over the past eight years (2013-2020). This is an ecological study, and all data were taken from the NIP. In comparison to the previous years, 2020 recorded the lowest figures of vaccination coverage (VC) of the average of the group of studied vaccines - 79.07% - while in 2019, this same index was 84.44%, resulting in a drop of 11.10% between these two periods. Moreover, during the year of the pandemic, of the ten analyzed vaccines, nine recorded their lowest historical VC figures, all of which were at least 14 percentage points below the goals set by the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MS, in Portuguese). Although there had already been a tendency toward a decline in VC, for various reasons, the present study illustrates that the numbers recorded in 2020 were significantly lower, a phenomenon also reported in other countries. Therefore, although it is impossible to affirm that the COVID-19 pandemic and its distancing measures are the causes for the drop in the immunization numbers, it can be inferred that there is indeed an association.