COVID-19: vacinação como caminho para controlar a pandemia: uma revisão narrativa da literatura

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that triggered a WHO-declared pandemic in 2020, having infected more than 600 million people, causing the disease that has been called COVID-19, which has already killed more than 6 million people around the globe. Several vaccines with varied technologies were developed in record time to contain the pandemic's advance. This paper aimed to identify, analyse, and compare, by means of a literature review, the scientific publications on the different vaccines against COVID-19 administered in Brazil. For this, a narrative bibliographic review was carried out, using articles published between 1992 and 2022, obtained from the PubMed, Scielo, Capes and Lilacs platforms, as well as from the websites of the World Health Organization, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Butantan Institute, and other reliable health organizations, seeking relevant information, about the development of the vaccines throughout history, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the development, in record time, of vaccines with different types of technologies, the safety, efficacy, and effectiveness of these vaccines and their role in controlling the pandemic, the need to use heterologous immunization schemes, and the efficacy of vaccines against new variant SARS-CoV-2 concerns. This study concluded that the four immunizers administered in Brazil: CoronaVac, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Janssen, have proven to be reliable, effective, and with low risk of serious side effects. With the advance of vaccination, there has been a decrease in severe cases and deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2, and vaccination is the most effective way to halt the emergence of new variants of the new coronavirus.