LAHORE, Oct 4: After successful launch in 45 countries, pneumococcal vaccine has finally been added to the index of Pakistan’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).

With the addition of the vaccine, the EPI would help develop immunity among children against nine deadly diseases — polio, measles, BCG, diphtheria, tetanus, pertusis, Hib, hepatitis B and pneumococcal disease.

In the first phase, the vaccine would be launched in Punjab and Islamabad on Oct 10, a senior official told Dawn.

Pakistan would be the first country in South Asia to use the expensive vaccine to inoculate children under five years against the pneumococcal disease. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) was assisting the government in providing the vaccine, the official said.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf is likely to launch the vaccine during the next round of the immunisation initiative in Islamabad and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore.

The chairman of the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group, Prof Dr Tariq Bhutta, said the vaccine was quite expensive as it cost $45 per unit in the US. However, the Gavi had purchased the vaccine from the world’s two leading manufacturers at a cost of $3.5 per unit to introduce it in South Asia, he said.

He said the Gavi would bear 95 per cent of the cost and Pakistan just five per cent and that the vaccine would be provided free of cost to the children.

Prof Bhutta said that seminars and consultative dialogues had been held across the country to create awareness about the vaccine among health professionals and the parents.

“Pneumococcal disease is the leading cause of pneumonia, which kills a lot of children in Pakistan and around the world,” he said. Each day about 70 children under five years died of the disease in the country.

The director of the National Institute of Child Health, Karachi, Dr Syed Jamal Raza, said the EPI had followed a rigorous process for getting approvals from international donors, global technical authorities like the WHO and the local technical committees and experts before deciding to introduce the vaccine.

Previously it took 10 to 15 years for developing countries like Pakistan —where the burden of diseases and the mortality rates were high — to add new vaccines to the EPI list of medicines. “Now with the help of the unique funding arrangement under which approximately 95 per cent of the cost is covered by the GAVI, new vaccines were being introduced in developing countries simultaneously with the developed countries, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives every year,” Dr Raza remarked.

He said the pneumococcal vaccine had been in use mostly in developed countries. “What makes Pakistan unique is that it is the first country in South Asia to introduce the vaccine. It is also the largest country… where a WHO-approved pneumococcal vaccine would be available free of cost through the EPI to help fight pneumococcal disease, including pneumonia and meningitis.”

The vaccine was ideally administered to children at the age of six, 10 and 14 weeks along with other vaccines, he said.

“If prescribed by private physicians, the vaccines cost a lot of money, between Rs12,500 and Rs16,000 per course,” said a senior official working for the EPI.

According to experts, pneumonia is one of the major causes of child mortality worldwide, claiming up to 1.5 million lives each year. The burden of pneumonia in Pakistan reflects the severity of the disease globally, whereby an estimated 91,000 children die of pneumonia every year of which pneumococcal pneumonia claims 27,000 lives.

Millions of others suffer from disease morbidity and infection with the threat of long-lasting adverse effects on health.