East Singhbhum launches Pentavalent vaccination to boost immunisation

Jamshedpur : East Singhbhum district launched the new vaccination regiment of Pentavalent replacing the earlier DTP giving a boost to child healthcare. The new Pentavalent (basically five individual shots integrated into one)�will give infants only three pricks instead of six in case of DTP.

The new vaccine was launched at Jugsalai community health center, as part of the National Vaccination programme.

The East Singhbhum district reproductive and child health officer Maheshwar Prasad said that it was better than the DTP. He went on to add that DTP was a vaccine against three infectious diseases like diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus while one had to take another set of vaccines for hepatitis-B which made the total pricks to six.

While in Pentavalent one would require only three pricks for the infants and in the process getting safety from five infectious diseases including the dreaded haemophilus influenza B.

The medical professional further said that haemophilus influenza B is a major cause of death for infants. The vaccine is first administered at six weeks, then at 10 weeks, and then at 14 weeks.

The vaccine will be available in all government hospitals, sub-centres and immunisation sites in the district free of cost from today.

The vaccine program was launched jointly by East Singhbhum zilla parishad member Rajkumar Singh and Jamshedpur MP (Bidyut Baran Mahato) representative Sanjeev Kumar at Jugsalai today.

�As part of the universal immunisation programme, the vaccine will be supplied through the Central Government to the States. While senior doctors acknowledge that the pentavalent vaccine should have been introduced earlier, they have welcomed it. �It�s better late than never and there should not be any misgivings about pentavalent vaccines. Thanks to such vaccines, parents need not make multiple visits, which will reduce the chance of default,� says a paediatrics.

The single shot of pentavalent vaccine will provide protection to infants from five life threatening ailments, including diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT), Hepatitis B and pneumonia due to Hib (Haemophilus influenza type b). Since 2011, the Centre had introduced pentavalent vaccine in a phased manner in Kerala, Karnataka, Pondicherry, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.

Doctors say pneumonia caused by Hib contributes to two per cent of total mortality in children under five years, and also accounts for 40 per cent of meningitis and more than 20 per cent of cases of pneumonia among them.

Annually, India has 3.12 lakh cases and a death toll of 72,000 in children under five years due to Hib.