The new addition to the Kerala’s schedule of Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) – the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) – which protects young children from pneumonia, meningitis and blood infections caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria will be launched in the State on Friday.
Health Minister Veena George will be present at the official State-level launch of the new vaccine at the Women and Children hospital at Thycaud in the capital.
PCV will be available for administration from the next immunisation day in all districts, an official release issued by the Health Department said.
Pneumococcal pneumonia is one of the leading causes of mortality among children below five years and causes over one lakh infant deaths annually in the country. The treatment is not only hard, but also prohibitively expensive.
Dosage
The vaccine will be given in three doses to infants at one-and-a-half months, five months, three-and-a-half months and at nine months.
The State is aiming to administer PCV to 40,000 infants in the first month and to immunise 4.8 lakh infants in the first year. A month’s requirement of PCV — 55,000 doses — is already available with the State and this has been distributed to the districts. The training of medical officers and health workers has been completed.
PCV, an expensive vaccine, has been available since long in the private health sector. However, it was first introduced in the UIP schedule by the Union Ministry for Health and Family Welfare in May 2017 in the States of Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, selected districts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
With the introduction of PCV in the UIP schedule, all children below one in the State will receive the same vaccines as are being given in the private sector.
