They said the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines in the national immunisation programme, particularly in countries with high mortality rates.
“Pakistan is a country where 80,000 to 100,000 children die every year due to pneumonia, which is a preventable disease through vaccine. Pneumococcal vaccines would be part of our national immunisation programme by March 2012, for which we felicitated the government and international donor agencies,” said PPA Central President Dr Amir Khan Jogezai.
PPA office-bearers claimed that the GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) has provided 1.5 dollars for purchase of 100 million doses of pneumococcal vaccine and added that by March 2012, 100 million doses of this vaccine would be available in Pakistan.
Later, while talking to The News, PPA Central President Dr Amir Muhammad Khan Jogezai said that unfortunately, only 50 percent of children were covered under the national immunisation programme.
“Pakistan is one of the fortunate countries in the world where we have such an effective immunisation programme that provides vaccines to children free of cost. It is now the responsibility of the parents to get their children vaccinated against preventable diseases,” he stressed.
He said the PPA, through hectic efforts, included Hepatitis B and HIB vaccination in the national immunisation programme a few years ago and now it was striving to get the pneumococcal vaccine included.
“In market, one dose of pneumococcal vaccine costs around 5,400 rupees, but hopefully by March 2012, it will be available to children free of cost and this step would help save thousands of children’s lives,” Jogezai said.
To a query, he said polio vaccine is only made available to the government by GAVI and is given free of cost to children through campaigns and vaccination centres. “Those looking for polio vaccine for their children at private hospitals and centres should know that this vaccine is acquired from government centres free of cost.”
