“Pakistan has the highest infant mortality rate (IMR) in South Asia due to low immunisation and vaccination coverage. Half of the children in Pakistan are not immunized due to mere 56 per cent coverage,” health experts briefed during the World Immunisation Week.
Pakistan Pediatric Association President and HOD Pediatrics at Allied Hospital and RMC Professor Dr Rai Muhammad Asghar said that immunisation is a proven tool for controlling and eliminating life-threatening infectious diseases and there is a dire need to increase the reach of expanded programme on immunisation (EPI).
He said that with the inclusion of Rotavirus diarrhea in EPI, government is giving protection against 10 deadly diseases. He further stated that it is the responsibility of parents to bring their children to EPI centers and get them vaccinated. “Increasing coverage to 80% can reduce infant child mortality drastically,” he added.
He added, “Vaccines protect children by preparing their bodies to fight many potentially deadly diseases. They are responsible for controlling many infectious diseases that were once common around the world, including smallpox, polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib).
To a question about the need for vaccination, he said that every year, globally, pneumonia kills an estimated 1.2 million children under the age of five years which is more than the deaths caused by AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Rotavirus gastroenteritis is estimated to cause more than half a million infant deaths. Two billion people are infected with Hepatitis B virus and about 780,000 people die. “All of this can be prevented through vaccination and immunisation,” Dr Rai said.
Globally, 17 per cent of deaths in under-five year age group are due to vaccine preventable diseases. “Without vaccines, epidemics of many preventable diseases could return, resulting in increased and unnecessary illness, disability, and death,” he added.
Talking about how vaccination change lives, HOD Pediatrics at Islamic International Medical College Professor Dr Samiya Naeemullah said that measles vaccination resulted in a 75 per cent drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2013 worldwide. She stated that illnesses and complications caused by influenza could be reduced by up to 60 per cent and deaths by 80 per cent in elderly patients.
“Polio cases have been reduced by 99 per cent from over 300,000 annually in 1988 to less than 650 cases in 2011. Smallpox was eradicated globally in a time span of 10 years,” Prof. Samiya said.
She added that we have to educate parents about the importance of vaccination and persuade them to bring their children to nearest EPI centers. She expressed that despite the availability of free vaccines, coverage is extremely low. She further stated that lack of awareness and socio cultural barriers are the biggest reason for low coverage.
“Media is the only force which can create mass level awareness and help protect our children from deadly diseases,” she concluded.