Bhubaneswar: If things go as per plan, the state government would start free pneumonia vaccination programme for the children from June this year, state Health and Family Welfare (H&FW) department said Friday.
H&FW department Director Bijaya Panigrahi Friday said that the state has received the vaccine doses from the Centre and that it is all set to start training programme for departmental employees for the purpose.
“We have received directions from the Union government to start training the medical staff and other workers engaged in immunisation works for the pneumococcal vaccines (PCV). We have planned to start the sensitisation works from May,” he told Orissa POST.
Panigrahi said that the vaccination programme to help prevent the kids from contracting pneumonia is likely to start from June. “The drive is likely to start in the country at same time. As soon as we get information from the Union government to start the drive, we will go for it,” he said.
Currently, the pneumococcal vaccines are available only in private health centres in the country. It was rolled out in pockets of the country on pilot basis. The cost of 10 valent pneumonia vaccine in the private hospitals is around Rs 1,600 while 13 valant pneumonia costs around Rs 3,200 per dose.
While 10 valent protects kids from 10 types of pneumococcal diseases, the 13 valent protects kids from 13 such types of diseases causing pneumonia. However, the 10 valent doses are said to give cross-protection to the additional three variants.
However, now it will be made available for kids at free of cost. This comes after the last Union Budget made provisions of starting the pneumonia vaccine drives in government hospitals to reduce chances of the infection in kids in their formative days of development.
“Inclusion of vaccines in government setups is likely to scale up the administration of the same to larger sections of the population. It can help in checking the chances of spread of the disease in children and thus prevent several preventable deaths in the state. Earlier, it was either available in private hospitals while or at a few government setups under a pilot project,” Dr Braj Kishore Behera, a paediatrician from the city.
He also said that these vaccines not only protect the kids from pneumonia but also from infections of ear and brain.
