Brazil’s President Rejects COVID-19 Vaccine, Undermining a Century of Progress Toward Universal Inoculation
The smallpox vaccine had arrived in Brazil almost a century earlier. But the syringes were long, left skin pockmarked and could transmit other diseases such as syphilis.
Vaccine resistance has a long history in Brazil.
In November 1904, thousands of people in the city of Rio de Janeiro protested government-mandated smallpox vaccinations in a famous revolt that nearly ended with a coup.
Making modern Brazil
The smallpox vaccine had arrived in Brazil almost a century earlier. But the syringes were long, left skin pockmarked and could transmit other diseases such as syphilis.