Allaying fears, Health dept says Diphtheria under control

The patients, aged between 8 years and 15 years, were admitted to Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital last week due to Diphtheria, while two children lost their lives due to the infection last month. 

The examination of these cases by clinical tests, cultural tests and overall analysis suggests that the children had missed the vaccination against Diphtheria. 

The first shot against Diphtheria- DTaP is given to a child after 10 weeks from birth, which is supposed to be followed by another booster dose of DT vaccine at 10 months of age. There are other two shots of Tdap vaccine given after the age of 11 and 19 to protect them against the bacteria. 

“It was found that the children who were affected due to the infection were from private schools who had not complied with a compulsory vaccination schedule. Children with low resistance to the infection are likely to have been infected as there have been reports of an outbreak in the neighbouring States with Kerala and Karnataka recording high numbers of cases,” said Dr K Kolandaisamy, director of public health.

“Often, parents do not vaccinate the children after they start going to school as they think vaccination is done only for infants. However, follow-up immunisation is very important. We have also instructed the private schools to follow the vaccination schedule strictly, otherwise action will be taken on the school authorities if any child is affected due to the infection,” added Dr Kolandaisamy.

It should be noted that a section of parents opposed vaccination of their wards at school stating personal reasons. However, State Health department officials said that only a small number of such cases have occurred, and private schools are instructed to follow the vaccination schedule for Class 5 and Class 10 students.