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The article focuses on the crisis of democracy in Argentina and Brazil, analyzing the influence of institutions, anti-politics, and new right-wing movements. It highlights the rise of leaders like Bolsonaro in Brazil and Milei in Argentina, as well as the resistance and durability of challenges to democracy. The relationship between anti-politics, new right-wing movements, and the democratic crisis is discussed, with a comparative focus between both countries. [Extracted from the article]

Objective: Brazil was strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its continental dimension and socio-demographic characteristics pose challenges to distribution and accessibility, making vaccination programs challenging. The objectives of the study were to describe the clinical and demographic characteristics of the general population vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 2021 and analyze the strategies implemented during the vaccination program. Study design and setting: A retrospective nationwide study that analyzed data from the OpenDataSUS platform of the Informatics Department of the Brazilian Ministry of Health (DataSUS), which contains information from all individuals in Brazil who have received at least one dose of any vaccine against COVID-19 approved by the National Health Agency (ANVISA) from 17 January to 3 October 2021. Results: Until 3 October, a total of 146,254,578 persons (68.6 per 100 inhabitants) received at least one dose of a vaccine in Brazil. The north and northeast regions had the lowest vaccination rates compared with the remaining regions (North: 56.8, Northeast: 62.0, South: 74.4, and Southeast: 73.2 per 100 inhabitants). Elderly individuals had the highest vaccination rates, particularly those above 70 years old. Heterologous dosing regimens were administered to 1,063,079 individuals (0.7% of those receiving the first dose). Conclusions: The COVID-19 vaccination program reached more than two-thirds of the population in Brazil by 9 months after its start, but the vaccination coverage was heterogeneous, reflecting the country's geographic and socio-demographic characteristics. Establishing priority groups for vaccination was a main characteristic of the vaccination strategy. In addition, technology transfer agreements have played an important role in increasing vaccine accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase Covid-19 vaccine uptake and protect vulnerable people, many countries have introduced a Covid-19 passport in 2021, allowing vaccinated individuals to access indoor facilities more freely and travel to foreign countries. However, the passport has had unintended consequences as it discriminates against those who do not want to get vaccinated for medical, religious, or political reasons, or those who do not have access to vaccines. The present study (N = 678) assessed across Brazil, UK, USA, and a group of other countries, the links between political orientation, human values, and moral foundations, and attitudes towards the Covid-19 passport and whether people perceive it as a discriminatory measure. Results showed that left-wingers, typically more inclined to recognize discrimination, favor the passport more and perceive it as less discriminatory than right-wingers. This pattern remains consistent even after controlling for human values and moral foundations, independently predicting attitudes towards the passport. Overall, our findings provide novel insights into a context in which left-wingers support measures that involuntarily discriminate against certain groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Twitter. • Social media. • COVID-19. • Vaccine. Despite Brazil's tradition of successful mass immunization programs, the country has been experiencing alarming declines in vaccination coverage, especially among children. That is aggravated by the growth of anti-vaccine movements and the spread of health misinformation in social media in the last decade, which have worsened during the COVID-19 outbreak. Several reports link populism and far-right politicians to anti-vaccination support worldwide, which was also the case in Brazil during president Jair Bolsonaro's administration. This project aimed to identify the circulating pro and anti-vaccine narratives in Portuguese on Twitter, during a crucial decision-making period regarding childhood vaccination in Brazil, from December 9, 2021, until February 9, 2022. From the over one million tweets and four million retweets collected, we identified two well-defined groups, one in favor and another against vaccination. Within the sample, we selected 1500 influencer tweets with the highest impact (>500 retweets) and conducted content analysis. Although the pro-vaccine influencers were more retweeted than anti-vaxxer ones, we observed that anti-vaccine movements were more succesful in framing discussions on Twitter. The subject of COVID-19 was the target of political polarization embedded in populist, anti-science and anti-traditional media discourses promoted by anti-vaxxers. As a counterpart, the pro-vaccine influencers reacted inarticulately, focusing on criticizing the anti-vaccination actors, attitudes, and policies instead of promoting vaccines. Based on reults, we claim that a well-coordinated network of health communicators from science centers and health institutions, in partnership with properly briefed social media influencers and fact-checking sources, would more efectively pre-tempt the public about vaccine misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sigmae is the property of Universidade Federal de Alfenas (UNIFAL-MG) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Enfermagem e Atenção à Saúde (REAS) is the property of Revista de Enfermagem e Atencao a Saude - Reas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

BACKGROUND Age misreporting affects population estimates at older ages. In Brazil, every citizen must be registered and show an identity document to vaccinate against COVID-19. This requirement to present proof of age provides a unique opportunity for measuring the oldest-old population using novel administrative data. OBJECTIVES To offer critically assessed estimates of the Brazilian population aged 80 and older based on data from the vaccination registration system (VRS). To uncover discrepancies between the number of vaccinated oldest-old people and the projections used to estimate target populations for COVID-19 vaccination. METHODS We calculate data quality indicators based on data from the VRS - namely, 100+/80+ and 90+/80+ population proportions, sex ratios, and the Myers blended index - and compare them to those based on data on target populations from Brazilian censuses and demographic projections, and from Sweden - a country with high-quality data. We also estimate vaccination coverage ratios using population projections adjusted to excess deaths as the denominators. RESULTS Requiring documentation reduces age heaping, age exaggeration, and sex ratios marginally. However, it cannot solve the problem of the misreporting of birth dates due to the absence of long-standing birth registration systems in Brazil, particularly in the northern and central regions. In addition, we find a mismatch between the projected populations and numbers of vaccinated people across regions. CONCLUSIONS Despite improvements in data quality in Brazil, we are still not confident about the accuracy of age reporting among the oldest old in the less advantaged Brazilian regions. The postponement of the 2020 census reduced the ability of authorities to define the target populations for vaccinations against COVID-19 and other diseases. CONTRIBUTIONS This is the first study to compare population estimates for the oldest old in administrative data and census data in Brazil. Age misreporting resulted in discrepancies that may have compromised the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Relações Internacionais is the property of Institute of International Relations of Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Vaccination uptake and intention to vaccinate is generally high in Brazil. • Brazilians are less likely to vaccine when the country of origin of a COVID-19 vaccine is mentioned. • Chinese and Russian developed-vaccines are the vaccines most rejected. • Current President Jair Bolsonaro is a COVID-19 denier and has specifically expressed negative views about China, the Chinese-developed vaccine and vaccination, in general. • Rejection of the Chinese-developed vaccine is particularly strong among those who have positive evaluations of President Jair Bolsonaro. This study examines the effect of the country of origin of the vaccine on vaccination acceptance against COVID-19. More specifically, we show how the political context in Brazil has affected acceptance of vaccines produced in China, Russia, the US, and England at the University of Oxford. Our data come from a survey experiment applied to a national sample of 2771 adult Brazilians between September 23 and October 2, 2020. We find greater rejection among Brazilians for vaccines developed in China and Russia, as compared to vaccines from the US or England. We also find that rejection of the Chinese-developed vaccine is particularly strong among those who support President Jair Bolsonaro—a COVID-19 denier and strong critic of China and vaccination, in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a detailed analysis of how health information was shared and discussed on Twitter in terms of awareness and opinions during the 2017 Yellow Fever outbreak in Brazil. For this, the data mining approach with exploratory graph analysis was performed. As main results, Twitter activity peaks were identified compared to peaks of cases reported in some regions of the country, an analysis of hashtags linked to the main subject and different topics from the exploratory analysis of graphs such as vaccination campaign, feelings, prevention, rumors, other diseases linked to the same transmitter, among others. This study illustrates that social networks, such as Twitter, offer unique opportunities for participatory surveillance, which can assist in monitoring some aspects of public health and offer additional data to health managers on how people interact during an outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study investigated whether the presence of care workers who completed a specialization course on family health was associated with improved care and maternal and child health indicators in municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Methods: Negative binomial regression models with fixed effects were used for the 79 municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, with repeated observations for the period 2009–2015. For our reference, the parameter "number of professionals who completed the course" calculated the proportion of professionals who completed the course, and was divided by the total number of primary health care professionals in the municipality to create a ratio. The cutoff points used represented tertile distribution: T3: high (0.35–1.00), T2: intermediate (0.02–0.33) and T1: low (0.00–0.01); to avoid biased results, the analysis was also performed for the years prior to the beginning of the course in question (2009 and 2010). Results: During the study period, enrollment of pregnant women, exclusive breastfeeding for children under 4 months, and up-to-date vaccinations in children younger than 1 year to 23 months increased (high to intermediate categories) in municipalities where professionals who completed the specialization course worked. Growth in the intermediate ratio was also observed in indicators related to cervical cancer screening and new diagnoses of congenital syphilis in infants under one year of age. Conclusions: The presence of care workers who completed a specialization course on family health was seen to be associated with improved care and indicators for maternal and child health in municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. These findings reaffirm the importance and effectiveness of policies on training and continuing education for the Brazilian Unified Health System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Economic evaluation of meningococcal serogroup B childhood vaccination in Brazil. • Epidemiological impact of introducing vaccination against MenB disease in Brazil. • Cost-effectiveness of introducing the Bexsero in Brazil. Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is associated with a high mortality and severe sequelae. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the potential cost-effectiveness of the Bexsero vaccine in Brazil. We used a cohort model to compare routine vaccination against MenB disease with no vaccination. Epidemiological and cost estimates were obtained from the Brazilian Health Information System. The cost per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was estimated assuming a 3-dose vaccination schedule, at R$90 (£ 20.50) per vaccine dose, 82.0% vaccine efficacy against MenB disease and a vaccine uptake of 90.0%. We estimated that 1,527 MenB cases would be prevented and 78 deaths averted. This strategy would cost R$ 762,381, 000 (£ 174,059,503) with a R$ 4,364,280 (£ 996,410) reduction in disease treatment costs. However, at an ICER of 372,256 (£ 84,990) per DALY averted, a vaccination programme is unlikely to be cost-effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]