Dismissing reports of deaths of some children after administration of pentavalent vaccine in Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Pakistan as unrelated, the Centre will introduce this vaccine as part of the routine immunisation programme in Kerala
The vaccine that will prevent children from five life threatening diseases will be introduced in Tamil Nadu
Pentavalent vaccine will protect children from Diphtheria, Pertussis, Hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae Hib disease, which is a new addition to the routine immunisation programme in the county.
It is administered to children at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age and will replace the existing DPT and Hepatitis B vaccine primary dose of which is given at the same age.
At present, there are 170 countries using the pentavalent vaccine of the 193 World Health Organisation member states.
Goa has been administering pentavalent vaccine from the State budget since 2008 which was initially introduced in selected blocks but the entire State was covered in 2011.
Introduction of Hib vaccination as a combination vaccine carries the added advantage of reducing the number of injections given to a child from 9 (3 each for DPT, Hepatitis B and Hib) to three.
It is estimated that 40 per cent of all under-5 mortality in India is attributed to pneumonia, meningitis ad diarrhoeas. Hib disease is estimated to cause 2.6 lakh cases of pneumonia and 52,000 cases of meningitis every year. Haemophilus influenza B is difficult to culture from pneumonia and meningitis cases as facility for taking the sample for culture is usually available only in tertiary care hospitals, due to prior use of antibiotics before reaching such facility and stringent culture conditions.
Based on the recommendations of WHO and the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), Pentavalent vaccine will be introduced in these two States with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation GAVI providing free vaccine for three years after which the Centre takes over the programme
