ISLAMABAD, Nov 13: Around 100,000 children may face tough time in the winter as the Expanded Programme of Immunistaion (EPI) has failed to provide free of cost pneumococcal vaccines to public sector hospitals in the capital city, Dawn learnt on Tuesday.
It may be noted that for the first time the World Helath Organisation (WHO) has approved supply of the pneumococcal vaccine (anti-pneumonia) to the hospitals through the EPI to help fight pneumonia, meningitis and bacteria among children, said an official associated with the programme.
He said the vaccines were to be administered to the children in the first week of November.
Every newborn is injected with the pneumococcal vaccine shots in three stages: at the age of six weeks, 10 weeks and 14 weeks, added the official.
Rehman Abbasi, a civil servant, told Dawn: “When I approached Pims to get my child vaccinated against pneumonia, the staff at the vaccination centre told me that they were without the vaccine. They asked me to purchase it from the market.” Mr Abbasi added that the vaccine for three shots cost him Rs13,000 in the market.
It may be mention here that the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (Gavi) has introduced pneumococcal vaccine to protect Pakistani children against pneumonia, as more than 352,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday and almost one in five of these deaths were due to pneumonia.
Gavi, a consortium comprising international donors from developed countries, is also assisting Pakistan in the purchase of the pneumococcal vaccines and has planned to provide $109 million to Islamabad between 2012 and 2016.
The Punjab government has already started its pneumococcal vaccine (anti-pneumonia vaccine) from October 25.
The hospitals which are to get the vaccine from EPI cell are Pims, Polyclinic, Capital Development Authority Hospital, National Institute of Rehabilitative Medicine Centre and its dispensaries.
The Islamabad administration’s health department is also provided with the vaccine. It has been learnt that hospitals under Pakistan Air Force at E-9 and Pakistan Navy at E-8 are also without the pneumococcal vaccine.
Asma Hussain, the mother of a baby boy, told Dawn at Pims: “I could not get the vaccine for my six-week-old son Ahmed Hussain.”
She said she had been visiting Pims and Polyclinic for the last two days but without getting the vaccine.
When contacted, Dr Zahid Larik, the EPI cell’s national programme manager at the ministry of inter-provincial coordination, said: “We are a ‘little’ late but will manage the provision of vaccines to the hospitals.”
He said vaccines were available in rich quantity and they had also given it to the provinces free of cost. He admitted that they had scheduled launching of the campaign during the first week of November but “our vaccinators were busy in running polio immunistaion campaign.”He added: “We will meet the vaccination target within the shortest possible time.”— Imran Ali Teepu