Calling the Shots

Taking up the cause of spreading awareness about the importance of immunisation,the Pune chapter of IAP is promoting World Immunisation Week to coincide with World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global campaign.

Doctors stress that vaccines have the power to not only prevent deaths but also to ensure that children have a chance to lead a healthy life. An example of this is the success of the polio eradication campaign. There are only three polio-endemic countries today,as compared to 125 countries in 1988. The Lancet study released this month concluded that a set of highly cost-effective interventions can prevent nearly two thirds of pneumonia deaths by 2025,if delivered at scale.

Dr Dhananjay Kashikar,president of IAP Pune,says,“It is important for parents to understand that immunisation is the safest and most cost-effective way to ensure a healthy life for their children. Greater awareness and concerted efforts by the government and medical associations will ensure better immunisation coverage,which will reduce the disease burden on the country.”

He says that among the various vaccine-preventable diseases,pneumonia and diarrhoea account for 35 per cent of all deaths among Indian children under five years of age. Pneumonia alone was responsible for the death of 3.72 lakh children below five in 2011. Kashikar adds,“The next uphill task is to control the burden of child deaths accounted by the remaining bugs causing pneumonia,meningitis and diarrhoeal diseases,which are major killers.”

He says that the government is also assisting in the fight by providing free basic immunisation against six major serious infectious bugs — diphtheria,whooping cough,tetanus,measles,polio and TB under the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP). A decade ago,the government decided to roll out Hepatitis B vaccine in UIP,which is a national immunisation programme for the benefit of all children across various socio-economic divides.

Recently,WHO and UNICEF along with more than 100 NGOs,civil society organisations and leading global experts also launched the Integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD) with an aim to reduce childhood deaths due to pneumonia and diarrhoea.

GAPPD urges governments and its partners to achieve global immunisation goals,introduce new and improved vaccines and accelerate R&D for the next generation of vaccines. If realised,the plan will help avert as many as 24.6 million child deaths globally by 2020,thus helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4) target of reducing under-five mortality rate by two-thirds.

However,Kashikar emphasises that the parents of newborn children need to visit their pediatricians or physicians to know the schedule for taking vaccinations and follow it faithfully.