HEALTH

Centre launches pneumonia vaccine, to be scaled up to five states by year end

pneumonia-reuters Pneumonia kills more under five-year-old children than any other infectious disease | Reuters

Union minister for health and family welfare Jagat Prakash Nadda launched the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in the country's Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) at Mandi, Himachal Pradesh on Saturday. 

The vaccine is being seen as an important addition in the UIP because pneumonia kills more under five-year-old children than any other infectious disease. India accounts for nearly 20 per cent of global pneumonia deaths in this age group. 

In 2010, pneumococcal pneumonia accounted for about 16 per cent of all severe pneumonia cases, and 30 per cent of pneumonia-related deaths in children under five in India. According to the ministry, introducing PCV will thus substantially reduce disease burden in the country.

While PCV protects against pneumococcal pneumonia, the pentavalent vaccine protects against Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) pneumonia. The pentavalent has already been scaled up in the government's immunisation programme in all states in 2015, and was seen as a controversial move. A section of public health experts had questioned the rationale behind introducing the vaccine, in the context of the associated costs and efficacy of the shots.

The PCV has been bereft of such a controversy. The vaccine has been available in the private market, but the high cost has prevented access to the shot for many.

Currently, the vaccine has been rolled out in Himachal Pradesh, parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and will soon be launched in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, ministry officials said. 

At a press meet in Delhi earlier this week, Nadda had said that the government's attempt was to get 90 per cent full immunisation coverage. Currently, the figure for full immunization stands at 63.9 per cent, according to National Health Family Survey, 2015-16.

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