The Brazilian National Immunization Program (NIP) is a reference in preventive immunization programs in the world. Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the distribution of vaccines in the NIP, as well as losses of doses in the Basic Health of a municipality in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. We conducted an exploratory study for the period from 2007 to 2010, from the data available in the NIP subsystems in the Municipal Health Department. In the municipality, 2,101,103 doses of vaccines were distributed; of these, 591,053 (28.13%) were applied, with loss technique of 1,447,829 (68.91%) and physical loss of 62,221 (2.96%) doses, with 71.96% of total losses. The results suggest high technical loss of vaccines and changing of some behaviors, as reduction of acquiring multi-dose vials with a large number of doses, funding research to create vaccines less thermolabile and using vials with monitors for measuring exposure to heat vaccines.
immunization programs; vaccines; immunization