Brazil begins mass vaccine study in poor Rio neighborhood

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian health authorities on Thursday began the mass immunization of Rio de Janeiro's Mare neighborhood in a novel bid to control COVID-19 in a poor community while studying vaccine effectiveness and the prevalence of worrisome variants.

The bayside Mare complex is comprised of more than a dozen so-called favelas and home to some 130,000 people, and the study is Brazil's first to target a low-income area. The Brazilian researchers leading the effort aren’t aware of another elsewhere in the world that has specifically focused on slums.

Rio is currently providing first vaccine doses to 34-year-olds. As such, the Brazilian government’s Fiocruz Institute aims to inoculate more than 30,000 Mare residents aged 18 to 33, and bring vaccine coverage of the adult population to near 100%, according to Dr. Fernando Bozza, the study’s coordinator. First doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be administered over the course of three days at 30 locations across Mare.

“This is important for Mare and for Brazil as a whole. Here in Rio de Janeiro, more than 1.5 million people live in favelas. Research is usually done in hospitals and health units,” Dr. Valcler Rangel, Fiocruz’s adviser for institutional relations, told reporters.

Before one station opened its doors in the early morning, already 100 people were lined up outside.

Those who choose to can also participate in Fiocruz’s study, for which the institute intends to recruit 2,000 families.

After her shot, Jennifer Cardoso Nunes, 27, signed a consent form and answered survey questions about her medical history, recent experience with anxiety, whether she works from home and the number of people with whom she lives. She shares her home with her grandmother and five aunts and uncles, all of whom will receive...