The role of rotavirus vaccine in cutting down the infant mortality rate in India has got a new thrust with the release of the findings of Global Enteric Multi-centre Study (GEMS). The study that was published online in the May 14 edition of The Lancet has found that the virus,which causes moderate to severe diarrhoea,has a key role in infant deaths (below five years) in India. The three-year study was conducted in India,Pakistan,Bangladesh and four African cities. According to Dr Shinjini Bhatnagar,professor at the Paediatric Biology Centre,Translational Health Science and Technology Institute,Gurgaon,Haryana,diarrhoea is responsible for 11 per cent of under five-year deaths in India with rotavirus causing one lakh deaths a year. In India,the rotavirus vaccine will prevent one-third of all diarrhoea deaths, she said. Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the leading causes of death in under-5 children. Diarrhoea causes seven lakh global deaths a year with 70 per cent of it occurring to infants in the first two years of their life, she said. Bhatnagar said an affordable rotavirus vaccine is being developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology and four US organisations from a neonatal strain isolated at AIIMS by Dr M K Bhan and colleagues. The vaccine can be used once approved by regulators. On May 14,the Department of Biotechnology will announce the results of phase three efficacy studies in India for the locally-made vaccine. We have an immunisation programme that has almost 70 per cent coverage. It augurs well for our children that an affordable vaccine will soon be available from a public-private partnership programme, she said. Bhatnagar lauded the GEMS study and said it has generated and analysed microbial data from large number of children with standardised methods across seven sites spanning two continents. This will be crucial in development and choice of appropriate region-specific interventions to check these infections, she said.
