Security issues are not the only cause for low vaccination coverage in Pakistan; managerial issues need to be fixed to improve the routine vaccination, said Dr Tahir Masood, president-elect of Pakistan Paediatrics Association (PPA) on Friday.
Addressing a press conference about vaccinations, he said that tens of thousands of children died every year in Pakistan due to lack of vaccination against deadly diseases even though the government had set up vaccination centers across the country where free vaccine was available.
The paediatrician said that a key concern was parents not paying heed to the importance of vaccination. On the other hand, perhaps the message of getting children vaccinated was not reaching the wide spectrum of the society, said Dr Masood.
He said that the government and non-governmental agencies had been benefitting from the World Immunisation Week, observed in the last week of April every year, and must do their best to deliver.
According to statistics, pneumonia kills around 80,000 children per year in Pakistan; from 2000 to 2007, intensified vaccination campaigns resulted in a 74 per cent reduction in measles deaths globally but in Pakistan measles outbreak occur regularly. After 2012, only three countries, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, remain polio-endemic, down from more than 125 in 1988.
“We need to tell parents about the importance of immunisation and of the dangers that diseases pose to their children. According to World Health Organisation immunisation is a proven tool for controlling and eliminating life-threatening infectious diseases. Vaccines are considered second only to clean drinking water in terms of importance in reducing infectious diseases,” Dr Masood said.
Approximately three million deaths are said to be prevented and 0.75 million children saved from disability through vaccination each year. The Southeast Asia region was on track to be certified polio-free in February 2014, but in Pakistan over 50 polio cases had been reported so far in 2014. This called for urgently making the vaccination programme more effective with the support of parents so that the desired results could be ensured, said Dr Masood.
Besides polio, outbreaks of measles, malaria, hepatitis, among other diseases occurred in many parts of the country every year, which also highlighted the need to work diligently to create awareness among the people about the significance of immunisation programmes for their children. “It seems that people are not benefitting from around 7,000 EPI centers established countrywide by the government to prevent children from epidemics and infectious disease while providing free-of-cost vaccine against nine diseases, namely diarrhoea, polio, pneumonia, hepatitis-B, diphtheria, tetanus, Hib, measles and tuberculosis,” he added.
It is high time, he added, that the government arranged aggressive campaigns and involved the masses in the Immunisation Week activities and try and eliminate the diseases that were widespread and making Pakistan a “dangerous country for the world”.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 3rd, 2014.