COVID-19 Update: Port of Santos workers will have priority in vaccination

Published on 28 January 2021

Ministry of Health includes transport sector professionals among the groups that will receive the doses of the immunizer in the first group

Transport professionals – considered providers of essential services for the development of Brazil – were included in the priority group in the vaccination campaign of the Ministry of Health against Covid-19. The measure is part of the agency’s technical report published on Monday (18).

According to the document, truck drivers, port workers (including workers in the administrative area) and employees of national airlines, passenger and cargo subway companies, Brazilian shipping companies, as well as drivers and collectors of public transport urban and long-haul passenger traffic.

The inclusion was celebrated by the Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas. “This is great news for our workers who continued, even during the entire pandemic, to render a great service to our country. These professionals will have the support of the Federal Government to guarantee vaccination as a priority group and we will guarantee safety and the conditions they need to continue on roads, ports and railways ”, he declared.

According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, to get vaccinated, these professionals will have to prove, through documentation, that they are part of these groups.

In the vaccination campaign of the Ministry of Health, which started yesterday, health workers, people aged 60 or over, people with institutionalized disabilities, indigenous people in villages, traditional riverside and quilombola peoples and groups with morbidities, employees of the prison system, prisoners, homeless people, rescue and security staff, armed forces, education workers and people with severe permanent disabilities.

Request

The inclusion of port workers among the priority groups was requested by several business associations in the sector. The first request on the topic came from the National Federation of Port Operations (Fenop). According to the president of the organization, Sérgio Aquino, in the ports of Santos and São Sebastião, there are 15,813 professionals among loose and bonded port workers.

According to the president of the Brazilian Association of Port Terminals (ABTP), Jesualdo Conceição Silva, in the country about 112 thousand people work in the port sector.

Crew

Entities providing assistance to foreign seafarers who come to the Port of Santos have asked the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) and the Port Authority of Santos to include crew members among professionals to be included in priority vaccination groups against Covid -19. Since March, when the pandemic began in the country, professionals from other countries are not allowed to leave the ships to avoid contamination. Initially, the fear was that the virus would arrive in Brazil on board the vessels, which did not happen.