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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : June 1, 2016 8:30 PM IST
Every year, 1.2 million Indian children die before reaching their fifth birthday, accounting for 21% of global deaths among children under the age of 5 years, most of them due to preventable causes, such as pneumonia and diarrhoea. Contributors to this situation are ignorance, illiteracy, fear and mistrust of the government's immunization programmes among people, opine Dr Josyula K Lakshmi, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad (IIPH-H) and Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Here is how she feels the rotavirus vaccination should be aimed at the society and the burden of diarrhoea deaths can be tackled.
Why it is important to implement rotavirus vaccination programs more aggressively?
The effective implementation of rotavirus immunisation programme will help reduce a significant proportion of the health and financial burden on families, and the country, brought on by diarrhoea-related morbidity and mortality. A single hospitalization for rotavirus diarrhoea costs families between INR 2,000 and INR 8,400 depending on the level of the. Aggregated, this costs the exchequer an estimated INR 4.9 billion each year. A vaccine can help avert these costs and hence emerges as the rational choice for both policymakers and end-users.
Is rotavirus vaccination the answer to diarrhoea deaths in India?
The success of the rotavirus vaccine in curbing diarrhoea deaths will rely greatly on the accessibility of both the vaccine and vaccine-related information, to effect positive health-seeking behaviour. Inadequacies in the health workforce and governance, equipment and logistics, sub-optimal cold chain management, and difficulty in reaching remote beneficiaries are some key challenges. In addition to this, ignorance or misconceptions about vaccines, fear of side effects and communication gaps makes it even more difficult.
What can be done to help the vaccination program reach far and wide?
Appropriate media campaigns are effective instruments to disseminate sound information to help people make informed decisions and avail themselves of the essential services provided. Community radio, local vernaculars, leaflets, posters and announcements are proven tools in this endeavour. Furthermore, the support provided by Accredited Social Health Activists (community health workers known as ASHA) is a vital link that enables the demand for health services. In addition to the push from nodal agencies of health religious leaders, school teachers, and civil society organizations, endorsement by these players can help in generating critical mass and promoting the understanding of the importance of immunization, especially in rural areas.
What is the need of the hour?
A role model for an effective communication campaign to support an immunization programme is the polio campaign in India. India's triumph in eradicating polio demonstrated the synergy of political commitment, comprehensive planning, provision, and implementation, celebrity persuasion and public confidence in the achievement of a public health success. It highlighted the critical role of appropriate health communication to complement effective programme implementation in a complex epidemiological setting. Learning from the polio experience, Mission Indradhanush, a campaign currently underway with the aim to boost full immunization coverage to 90% and sustain it at that level into 2020, is working on health information education and communication (IEC), aided by a communications drive to help it attain its goal. The introduction of the rotavirus vaccine presents a great opportunity to harness the power of effective health communication to further the goal of reducing diarrhoea-related morbidity and mortality, and undo the gloomy irony of the most child deaths in a country at the forefront of vaccine-production.
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