New Delhi: India contributes to more than 50 per cent of the world's pneumonia deaths. Pneumonia is fast emerging as the next big challenge after polio for the country. During the World Immunisation Week, the question is whether pneumonia vaccines should be introduced in India's national immunisation programme.
Pneumonia is a big challenge as 3,70,000 Indian children die due to the disease annually and 60,00,000 children are affected by it every year, leading to debilitating and life long diseases, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
The WHO says that India accounts for 50 per cent of the world's total pneumonia deaths. so is Pnenomia the next big vaccination that India should embark on.
Chairman of ICMR's Pneumonia Task Force Professor NK Ganguly said, "The good thing about vaccines is that you can carry them to 80 to 90 per cent of the children because we have an immunization system and these vaccines prevent the disease rather than curing it. So why not eliminate it when we can?"...
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07:04 PM, Apr 24, 2012
