OBJECTIVES: COVID-19 pandemic has posed major challenges for healthcare systems and societies worldwide. Mitigation measures and the fear of exposure to COVID-19 might have negatively impacted local health policies, such as pediatric immunization programs strategies. This observational study aims to analyze the vaccination coverage (VC) for hepatitis B in infants in Brazil and Colombia between 2015 to 2020.

METHODS: This is a descriptive analysis using real-world data from the Expanded Immunization Program System from Brazil (SI-PNI) and the Epidemiological Surveillance System from Colombia (SIVIGILA). We calculated the annual variation of VC for hepatitis B in infants from 2015 to 2020 for both countries.

RESULTS: Overall, Brazilian VC had an average annual decline of 3.6% in the pre-COVID-19 period (2015-2019), reaching the lowest coverage in 2019 (78.57%), while the Colombian VC had an increasing pattern for the same period (0.4% annually), reaching the highest coverage in 2017 (89.3%). In 2020, VC decreased by 19.8% in Brazil, compared with 2019. In Colombia, VC decrease was notably lower (1.0%).

CONCLUSIONS: In Colombia, VC increase might be explained by the implementation of the national plan for hepatitis B elimination in infants during this period. In Brazil, VC coverages for several other infectious diseases have also faced a decrease during the last years, but no formal mitigation activity or plan was yet established. Although both countries showed a reduction of the VC coverage in 2020, the impact was considerably higher in Brazil. These trends could be explained by the distinct health strategies linked to the Expanded Immunization Programs for each country in preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic.