Why vaccinations for several diseases are falling sharply in Brazil
The country had been a champion of immunization. But the pandemic has now amplified declining rates, and experts warn that diseases once eradicated are re-emerging.
The more than half a million lives lost to COVID-19 in Brazil, ranked seventh in the world in deaths per capita, has underscored the need to amp up vaccination against the coronavirus—and indeed most Brazilians are eager to get the COVID-19 shot.
A May poll showed that 91 percent already had been or planned to be immunized against SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. But an increasing number have decided that both they and their children can hold off on getting routine vaccines that keep diseases like polio, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, and flu at bay. That's in line with the World Health Organization and UNICEF's concerns that the pandemic could endanger gains made against a slew
