The State Government will launch its maiden immunisation programme against pneumonia for infants in the second week of June for which over 77,000 doses of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) have been supplied to all the 24 districts, health officials said on Wednesday.
PCV will be a part of the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) in Jharkhand under which infants in the age bracket of 45 days to nine months will be vaccinated, a statement from the health department said.
“This is the first time that Jharkhand will run an immunisation programme against pneumonia for children. The vaccine will be administered to children at the age of 45 days, three and a half months and nine months,” said Dr. Siddharth Tripathi, the nodal officer for health department’s IEC wing.
The launch of the immunisation programme against pneumonia assumes significance as it is feared that a third wave of Covid-19 may affect children, said officials. In many cases, symptoms of pneumonia have been reported in children suffering from Covid-19 across the world and the immunisation may act as a protective shield for the infants in Jharkhand, sources said.
On Tuesday, the Niti Ayog cautioned that Covid-19 led to pneumonia in infected children, which may cause fast deterioration of health, especially the respiratory system. As per state health department, it is feared that Covid-19 may affect around 7 lakh children in Jharkhand and about 45,000 of them may need hospitalization. Around 9000 children in the state may need intensive care during a possible third wave of the pandemic.
As per data shared by the health department, as many as 77,200 doses of PCV have been distributed among the 24 districts to run the immunisation programme and training for the vaccination campaign started in all the districts on Wednesday. Babies that were born in the month of April will get the first of the three doses of the vaccine this month.
While there was no data available on the number of deaths caused due to pneumonia among children in Jharkhand, figures with the United Nations highlight that India reported the second highest number of pneumonia deaths among children globally in 2018. As per the UN data, at least 127000 children died of pneumonia in India, which was more than double the number of deaths that occurred in neighbouring Pakistan.
Global vaccine manufacturer Pfizer has also started experimenting the effect of PCV along with Covid-19 booster jab in fully vaccinated adults, news reports highlighted. The aim of the study is to understand if the combination of the vaccines is safe, and the immune response after adding the pneumonia vaccine to the existing Covid-19 vaccine, Pfizer said in a statement.