Health campaign: Anti-pneumonia drive from Nov 10

THATTA: An anti-pneumonia drive will be launched across Sindh from November 10, in which children will be given a new vaccine.

During an awareness seminar organised by the government’s expanded programme for immunisation (EPI) and the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), doctors said that children will be vaccinated for free.

Officials added that it costs Rs13,000 to administer three doses to a single child. Similar drives are already underway in the Punjab. AKUH’s Dr Asad Ali, Asif Raza Khuwaja, and EPI’s additional director Dr Zahoor Baloch lamented that over 350,000 children below the age of five age die every year in the country due to the avoidable disease. Thatta’s district health officer Dr Agha Iftikhar was also present on the occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2012.