Curbing diarrhoea: Rotavirus vaccine being added to EPI programme from May

GAVI has been requested to share 90 percent of the cost of the vaccine

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is introducing rotavirus vaccine (RV) for fighting diarrhoea in its extended programme for immunization (EPI).

The government has decided to request the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) for co-financing the cost of the vaccine to be introduced in EPI from May this year.

“Pakistan will seek 90 percent financing from GAVI,” EPI National Programme Manager Dr Saqlain Ahmed Gilani told The Express Tribune on Thursday.

“The anti-diarrhoea programme will be launched in Punjab first if GAVI’s Independent Review Committee approves Pakistan’s request in June,”  Gilani said.

He added that the vaccine will be introduced in other parts of country subsequently and almost 80 percent area would be covered till 2018.

Meanwhile, a provincial consultative meeting was also held at EPI office here on Thursday in which experts discussed and agreed to inoculate two doses of rotavirus vaccine to a child in the routine immunization schedule.

Dr Gilani briefed the participants about the vaccine and highlighted that globally 700,000 children, under five die of diarrhoea while rotavirus kills more than 197,000 (28%) children.

“In Pakistan rotavirus is responsible for gastrointestinal infections in one out of three children”, Dr Gilani said, adding that 50 percent diarrhoea cases in children are caused by rotavirus.

In Punjab, 3,700 children are infected with rotavirus.

Briefing the participants about the main features of the vaccine, he said it is an oral vaccine which will be inoculated to the child in two doses; the vaccine will be effective for 14 weeks. He said that the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group had recommended the introduction of the vaccine in 2011 and 2016.

Dr Gilani apprised the participants that a working group had been constituted to develop a comprehensive rotavirus vaccine application.

Discussing the requirements of the rotavirus vaccine application, the NP manager said that a storage capacity analysis at the district level and an additional cold chain capacity from province to district level were required. “We will need to enhance our storage capacity by 32 to 35 percent,” he said.

He said the preparation and development of rotavirus disease burden and surveillance mechanism, monitoring and evaluation plan, health system strengthening (HSS) monitoring framework and GAVI performance framework finalization were also underway.

He said that maintaining a balance of gender and equity and increased immunization coverage was also a requirement for the rotavirus vaccine application. Provincial EPI managers and development partners attended the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2016.