ABSTRACT
The state of Rio de Janeiro has come to be considered the state with the highest lethality rate, with one death for every 20 infected by the "new virus", according to bulletins from the Ministry of Health (BRASIL, 2021). The first phase of the vaccination campaign against the disease in the state had only 488,320 doses of the immunizer. Given the scarcity of resources, public managers had the challenge of prioritizing the distribution of vaccines among age groups in order to minimize the impacts of mortality. Therefore, it became imperative to identify to which age group the initial vaccine supply should have been prioritized in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The objective of the research is to provide information to support the problems encountered by the public administration regarding the management of immunizers. The study area is the state of Rio de Janeiro, where data from the main epidemiological observatory sites in the state of Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic were used, using statistical techniques such as tabular and parametric description, measures of central tendency, percentages, and the linear interpolation method to calculate the population estimate by age. The distribution of the first batch of vaccines was simulated proportionally across the respective age groups. The study variables were lives saved and years saved, and simulations of 81 scenarios were performed, distributing the vaccines among the 10 possible age groups. The results obtained showed that by concentrating the application of available vaccines in the older population, a greater number of lives saved are obtained, regardless of the effectiveness of the immunization. As for the variable years saved, it can be seen that the population between 70 and 79 years old is the one that presents the best result in relation to the other age groups. It is suggested that further studies be carried out to empirically estimate the efficacy against death of available vaccines, due to the existence of an increasingly robust database.