Health-e (Cape Town)
Phakamile Magamdela
4 April 2009
As from April, children under the age of five will receive free immunisation against pneumococcal diseases, which cause infections such as pneumonia, as part of the government's revised Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI).
The decision to routinely immunise children under the age of five against pneumococcal diseases is an important step towards achieving the Millenium Development Goal 4, which aims to reduce childhood mortality by two thirds by 2015.
"Preventing children from developing the severe respiratory infection of pneumonia, in the first place, is critical to reducing its death toll", says Professor Shabir Madhi, chairperson of the Department of Science and Technology's National Research Foundation of Vaccine Preventable Diseases Unit.
"This vaccine is going to be given, at six weeks of age, at 14 weeks of age and at nine months of age. We expect in children that are HIV-uninfected, that the total number of severe pneumococcal diseases that would occur in those kids, would be reduced by up to about 85 percent. In HIV-infected kids, we expect the total number of severe invasive pneumococcal diseases will be reduced by up to about 65 percent", Madhi added.
"Every five minutes, there are seven children, globally, that die from pneumococcus. Forty percent of those deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, which only makes up about 15 to 18 percent of all children under five years of age", he explained.
Amongst other conditions, Madhi added, the pneumococcus bacteria may cause deafness in children. "The pneumococcus is a very important bacterial cause of "Acute Otitis Media", which is the one that is the most difficult to treat. It obviously impacts on the child's ability to develop language, to develop speech and it also impacts on the child's ability in terms of learning", he said.
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