Brazil's Health Ministry will resume including a polio booster dose for four-year-olds in the national vaccination schedule starting August 3.
The new schedule includes three doses of the inactivated polio vaccine at two, four and six months of age, plus boosters at 15 months and four years. The change was discussed with the Technical Advisory Chamber on Immunizations, CONASS, CONASEMS and OPAS.
Until 2024 the schedule included boosters with the oral vaccine. The immunizer is now applied exclusively by injection. Unvaccinated children can receive doses up to four years, 11 months and 29 days.
The last case of poliovirus infection in Brazil occurred in 1989 and the country received certification as free of the wild virus in 1994.
