Haryana to procure pneumonia meds from UNICEF

GURUGRAM: National Health Mission (NHM) will soon introduce Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) in Haryana under Universal Immunization Program (UIP). A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed with United Nations Children's Fund (

UNICEF

) to procure PCV. The budget for the same has been sanctioned under Haryana government’s initiative ‘Haryana Swarna Jayanti Yojana’.

Pneumonia is major killer disease and attributing to 16 per cent of total under five mortality in the state. Haryana has around nearly 5,80,000 annual live births a year. At present Haryana’s Under 5 mortality is 43 deaths per 1000 live births. Under the sustainable development goal reduction under 5 mortality is to be reduced to 25 as per VISION 2030. In Gurugram too, around 100 cases of children suffering from pneumonia are reported in a year. Therefore, the state health department will introduce PCV in its immunisation schedule. On June 5, an MoU was signed by mission director Amneet P Kumar and

Louis Georges Arsenault

, UNICEF Representative to India under which PCV will be procured from UNICEF.

State health minister Anil Vij said that “Pneumonia kills more children under five years of age in Haryana than any other infectious disease.

State Technical Advisory Group

on Immunization was constituted to review and recommend its views on various technical and programmatic issues to immunization and PCV introduction”.

Currently in India, the PCV is in use in the private sector, however, this is expensive and therefore not affordable for a larger section of the society. Government of Haryana is introducing PCV in the state to achieve Zero childhood deaths due to preventable causes as per agenda of Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

“According to a study, nearly 16 per cent of under five deaths are due to pneumonia, to which contribution of pneumococcal pneumonia is 30 per cent. We will be introduce the vaccine in all 21 districts of the state. This will prevent the children catching Pneumonia and will save around 3500 deaths from Pneumonia in the State of Haryana,” said Amit Jha, Principal Secretary to Government, Haryana, Health Department and Chief Executive Officer,”.