Temporal trends of vaccination coverage in children under five in Brazil, 1998-2024.

INTRODUCTION

Vaccination coverage is an important indicator of the population's protection against vaccine-preventable diseases, and the World Health Organization warns of the existence of 25 million children worldwide with incomplete vaccination schedules, with a significant portion of them in Brazil.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to analyze the time-series trends of vaccination coverage for 12 vaccines targeting children under five years of age in Brazil, between 1998 and 2024.

METHODS

This is an ecological time-series study using official data from the information system of the Brazilian National Immunization Program. Temporal trend analyses were conducted using simple linear regression models.

RESULTS

The yellow fever vaccine exhibited a statistically significant increasing temporal trend but remained below the target set by the Ministry of Health throughout the study period. In contrast, the BCG vaccine demonstrated a significant decreasing temporal trend. The trends for the other ten evaluated vaccines could not be established, as they lacked statistical significance.

CONCLUSION

The results show that 11 of the 12 studied vaccines are below the Ministry of Health's target, making it evident that urgent measures must be taken to change this scenario.