"Civilizing Rio de Janeiro": the public health campaign and the riot of 1904

Anti-vaccination movements in the world and in Brazil

Over the years, vaccinations have provided significant advances in public health, because they substantially reduce the morbimortality of vaccine-preventable diseases. Nevertheless, many people are still hesitant to be vaccinated. Brazil is a region of many anti-vaccine movements, and several outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as yellow fever and measles, have occurred in the country during the last few years. To avoid new outbreaks, immunization coverage must be high; however, this is a great challenge to achieve due to the countless anti-vaccine movements. The World Health Organization has suggested new actions for the next decade via the Immunization Agenda 2030 to control, reduce, or eradicate vaccine-preventable diseases. Nonetheless, the vaccination coverage has decreased recently. To resolve the anti-vaccine issue, it is necessary to propose a long-term approach that involves innovative education programs on immunization and critical thinking, using different communication channels, including social media. Cooperation among biology and health scientists, ethicists, human scientists, policymakers, journalists, and civil society is essential for an in-depth understanding of the social action of vaccine refusal and planning effective education measures to increase the vaccine coverage.

Vaccine confidence in the time of COVID-19

In the early months of the COVID-19 epidemic, some have wondered if the force of this global experience will solve the problem of vaccine refusal that has vexed and preoccupied the global public health community for the last several decades. Drawing on historical and epidemiological analyses, we critique contemporary approaches to reducing vaccine hesitancy and articulate our notion of vaccine confidence as an expanded way of conceptualizing the problem and how to respond to it. Intervening on the rush of vaccine optimism we see pervading present discourse around the COVID-19 epidemic, we call for a re-imagination of the culture of public health and the meaning of vaccine safety regulations. Public confidence in vaccination programs depends on the work they do for the community-social, political, and moral as well as biological. The concept of public health and its programs must be broader than the delivery of the vaccine technology itself. The narrative work and policy actions entailed in actualizing such changes will, we expect, be essential in achieving a true vaccine confidence, however the public reacts to the specific vaccine that may be developed for COVID-19.

Vacinação, varíola e uma cultura da imunização no Brasil

O objetivo deste artigo é discutir a emergência e o estabelecimento de uma "cultura da imunização" no Brasil contemporâneo a partir da erradicação da varíola. Essa cultura está associada a um longo processo de introdução de vacinas, de campanhas de vacinação e de vacinação em massa empreendidas pelo Estado brasileiro desde o final do século XIX. Particular importância é atribuída à campanha de erradicação da varíola no Brasil (1966-1973). A experiência da vacinação em massa da população contra a varíola é contrastada com episódios de resistência como a "Revolta da Vacina", e considerada como crucial na configuração de novas políticas e novas compreensões sobre o papel da imunização na saúde pública e seu lugar na sociedade brasileira.