Resumen

GRAJEDA ANCCA, Pablo F., ROJAS PARIONA, Carmen R., FARFAN RIOS, Henry et al. Evaluación de cobertura y del nivel de información en la campaña de vacunación contra la fiebre amarilla, Cusco,Perú, 2005. Acta méd. peruana, abr./jun. 2008, vol.25, no.2, p.63-67. ISSN 1728-5917.

Introduction: Yellow Fever (YF) is enzootic in Cusco, and it is a serious public health problem. A National Plan for Control and Prevention of YF was implemented, aiming at vaccinating the whole Peruvian population above 1 year of age in four stages (2004-2007); and it was expected to vaccinate all of Cusco city inhabitants (306,160 persons in this age group) between November 2004 and February 2005. The final coverage reported was 83.5%. The objective of the study was to assess vaccination coverage and knowledge and communication levels of this campaign. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional, and prospective study was performed in Cusco in March 2005, using a stratified and randomized sampling technique. 954 people were interviewed in order to assess vaccination coverage and 386 for other objective measures. Results: Vaccination coverage against yellow fever in Cusco was 64.04%. Vaccinated people did not have good knowledge of: what yellow fever is (76.7%), how is it transmitted (50.9%), time in which the vaccine starts to exert its effect (84.9%), duration of the protective effect of the vaccine (92.2%), and contraindications for vaccination (65.2%). Only 0.27% remembered at least one of key messages of the campaign. Conclusions: This assessment showed that the goals for coverage in this vaccination campaign were not achieved; there were large differences between official reports (83.5%) and the results form our survey (64.04%). Immunized population was not adequately informed about the yellow fever vaccine and its vaccination campaign, which leads to question the benefits of performing campaigns affecting some basic bioethical principles.

Palabras llave: vaccination; vaccination coverage; yellow fever.