September 20, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1429

PESHAWAR, Sept 19: Non-availability of vaccines for childhood ailments in public sector health facilities due to the alleged delaying tactics by the federal health ministry has been adversely affecting newborns across the province, health officials and parents said.

“Most of health facilities in the province have run out of children’s vaccines for eight immunisable ailments due to which children could suffer in future,” said doctors in local teaching hospitals. They said hospitals had not been receiving vaccines for whooping cough, diphtheria, measles and hepatitis.

Sources in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation of the provincial health department said the scarcity of vaccines had been the result of delaying tactics used by the federal Ministry of Health.

Doctors said children required certain doses of certain vaccines at a specific time and delay in vaccination could affect them.

The federal government, which is responsible for supplying the vaccines to the provinces, has been informed about the shortage several times, but there has been no progress. Health officials said people were facing problems because the vaccines were not available in the market and parents were required to get immunised their children in state-run hospitals.

“Only hepatitis B vaccination, which was made part of the free immunisation campaign in the province a few years ago, is available in the market for Rs1,000, which is also unaffordable for a majority of parents,” said a paediatrician.

According to him, the health department was finding it hard to ensure proper supply of Bacillus Camate Guerain (BCG) to hospitals in the city and in different districts. “It is administered to children to protect them against TB.”

Sources said there was no BCG vaccine in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Kohat districts as well as in Malakand and Hazara regions.

Non-availability of a combination of diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus vaccines has also been affecting children.

A senior doctor in the provincial health department said supply of vaccines had been delayed by the federal government for two months. He said vaccinators had not been trained in administering new vaccines for four diseases to children due to which the supply had been delayed with a view to give them to children in the right manner.

“Now, the staff has been imparted training regarding administering the new vaccines to children. In a few days, hospitals will get enough stock of the vaccines,” he said.

Officials of the National Institute of Health in Islamabad said the institute was also faced with shortage of the vaccines, but these had now been imported and were being supplied to hospitals.