Rich students to help fund typhoid shots for poorer classmates in Gulshan schools

NGO, Trust for Vaccination and Immunisation (TVI), plans to start work in Gulshan October-end.

KARACHI: A typhoid vaccination campaign by the Trust for Vaccination and Immunisation (TVI) will kick off at the end of this month and will involve richer students helping pay for the shots for their less privileged counterparts.

Incidents of the highly antibiotic-resistant bacterial fever are decreasing with an improvement in sanitation across the world, but in countries like Pakistan, it is still a common threat.

In the more densely populated areas of Pakistan, at the top of which lies Karachi, almost 500 out of 100,000 people are affected by typhoid every year. The rate is a little lower in places with thinner population, said Dr Imran Khan, member of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) staff.

The disease mainly spreads through faeco-oral transmissions and affects children more than adults, he said, adding that this makes almost 70 per cent of Pakistan’s population vulnerable.

TVI spent the whole of August planning and organising their campaign. On September 25, a seminar, “Burden of Typhoid Fever in School-aged Children and Potential for Prevention”, was held. The discussion was attended by teachers of schools in Gulshan town.

TVI aims for complete eradication of typhoid from Pakistan by implementing a unique cross-subsidisation model through which well-off school-going children will pay a subsidised vaccination fee, which will be used to generate revenue for free vaccinations to the less affluent school-going children.

Health awareness sessions on typhoid fever are being held in consenting Gulshan schools. These sessions are targeting almost 150,000 children in private and public schools as well as madrassahs. In each session doctors discuss the health implications of typhoid, preventive measures and why and how the typhoid fever still remains a major public health problem in Pakistan.

A child affected by the bacterial fever skips at least five days of school and in extreme cases almost a month, which is a significant educational loss, said Dr Khan. According to him, prompt action can prevent typhoid in almost 100 per cent of the cases.

The cost of treatment is very high and if the fever is not treated on time, the repercussions can be fatal. Treatment and medication cost from Rs1,000 to Rs4,000. In more serious cases that require hospitalisaton, the costs can rise to Rs30,000 or even Rs60,000.

Vaccinations will start at the end of October. The cost of one dose of vaccine, which produces a three-year immunity, is Rs200 in schools. Children above the age of two are being injected with the anti-body.

The TVI has taken this initiative in collaboration with the Sindh health ministry, education ministry, the City District Government of Karachi - Gulshan Town and Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) Sindh. Another collaborator in this effort is the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) Seoul, South Korea.

Dr Khan told The Express Tribune that Gulshan town has children from all strata of society and here they can hope to establish a successful chain of vaccination for the poor as well as affluent.

The trust has funds to carry out the campaign in one more town and they plan to target Jamshed Town next. However, he hopes that eventually they will be able to conduct the vaccination programme in all towns of the city.

What is TVI?

A non-profit organisation, TVI was formed in December 2009. Dr Abdul Gaffar Billoo, Naseem Iqbal, Dr Ejaz Vohra and Dr Tariq Iqbal Bhutta are among the Board of Trustees. Professor Billoo, chairman of TVI, believes that philanthropic efforts through his organisation will lead to effective programmes for the use of vaccines in Pakistan.

The vision of TVI is that every child in Pakistan, irrespective of his/her social standing and ethnic background, should be protected against diseases that can be prevented by administering the correct vaccines.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2010.