Speaking to Lusa, Jorge Amil Dias recalled some indicators used by the working group that recommended the vaccination of children to support its reasoning.
The first part of the “about 70,000 children” who will have already been exposed to the virus – a number that, according to existing studies, should be double or triple, as it is believed that “for every positive case identified there will be two or three unidentified".
Therefore, concluded the paediatrician, "about 200 million children have already been in contact with the virus and have already acquired antibodies against the virus, because contact with the infection causes natural immunity."
"Knowing that there are 600,000 children between the ages of five and eleven (according to government data), at least a third of children in this age group are already naturally immunised", he pointed out, noting that these children "did not get sick or die and only exceptionally, in four cases, did they need to be admitted to intensive care”.
"Other indicators indicate that around four thousand children are being naturally inoculated by the virus per month and are not getting sick," he added.
Faced with this scenario, Jorge Amil Dias asks: “What is the need then to implement a vaccination program, which is expensive, which mobilizes resources and which will not add much more than what nature is doing alone?”
The issue of vaccinating children "must be weighed in light of this reality", defended the head of the College of the Medical Association, acknowledging that he would like to see the Director-General of Health answer these questions.
"No other disease would be subject to a vaccination program if we had a third of the population already protected", he said, considering it "unnecessary".