Vaccine to protect newborns from 5 deadly diseases

The Union Health Ministry has rolled out a pentavalent vaccine to meet its 90 per cent immunisation target. 

Talking to Millennium Post, additional secretary in the ministry CK Mishra said, “We have rolled out pentavalent across the country and Uttar Pradesh was the last state where this vaccine has been introduced. We will be covering 2.71 crore newborns under this vaccination, which means about 2.60 crore babies will get relief from pricks.” 

A pentavalent vaccine is five individual vaccines conjugated in one intended to protect a child from five deadly diseases – Haemophilus Influenza type B (a bacteria that causes meningitis, pneumonia and otitis), whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis B and diphtheria.

“All formalities have been completed and tenders have been placed for procuring the vaccine. The annual requirement of pentavalent vaccine to meet the immunisation target is of about 8.5 crore doses and to run the programme smoothly a budget allocation of Rs 750 crore is needed,” said Mishra, who is also managing director of National Health Mission. 

At present, the ministry has a budget of Rs 600 crore to carry out this programme.

In another major achievement, Gabi, an international funding agency, has committed to support Rotavirus vaccination programme with an aid of $500 million for the next five years. The Rotavirus vaccination plan will be launched in February-March next year, starting from four states – Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. 

“Around 1.5 lakh newborns die of diarrhoea every year and by introducing the rotavirus vaccine, we will be able to save around 50,000 babies annually,” aid Rakesh Kumar, joint secretary in the ministry.

The indigenous vaccine manufacturing company Bharat Biotech has been finalised to supply the drug, which will be procured by the ministry at the rate of Rs 60 per dose.