Now, preventive vaccination for pneumonia

GURUGRAM: The

health department

will now introduce

Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine

(PCV)-13 in the district to control Pneumonia. The illness attributes to 16 per cent of total under five mortality in the state. At present

Haryana’s Under 5 mortality

is 43 deaths per 1000 live births. In Gurugram too, around 100 cases of children suffering from pneumonia are reported in a year. Gurugram’s chief medical officer

Dr BK Rajora

said that “Pneumonia is a bacterial infection which is communicable. It can also lead to brain fever, hearing impairment etc”.

Under the sustainable development goal reduction under 5 mortality is to be reduced to 25 as per

VISION 2030

. Therefore, the state health department will introduce PCV in its immunisation schedule.

Currently, the PCV is in use in the private sector, however, this is expensive and therefore not affordable for a larger section of the society. A single dose of the vaccine costs around Rs 3,500 and a patient needs at least three doses.

Haryana government is introducing PCV-13 in the state to achieve Zero childhood deaths due to preventable causes as per agenda of

Sustainable Development Goals 2030

. The first dose of PCV13 will be given to the child at the age of six weeks, second dose at 11 weeks and third at the 9 months.

“The vaccine help in building immunity if the child and it will not be able to catch Pneumonia. This will save around 3500 deaths from Pneumonia in the State of Haryana,” said deputy commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh.

Currently, the health department gives

preventive vaccination

against 11 diseases including Hepatitis B, polio drops, Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG), pentavalent, measles, DPT and Rotavirus.