DT Health: Doctors hail combination vaccines for infants as boon

CHENNAI: Children are exposed to an innumerable number of germs, some of which can cause serious diseases. A child’s immune system is still developing and it cannot fight against all deadly diseases. According to WHO, immunization is one of the most successful public health interventions to prevent deaths from infections such as diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus in all age groups. The six in one combination vaccination protects children from six serious illnesses such as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, haemophilus influenza type B, hepatitis B, and poliomyelitis.

Dr S Balasubramanian, Senior Consultant in Pediatrics and IAP IDC Fellowship Coordinator, Kanchi Kamakoti Childs Trust Hospital said, “Combination vaccination is very useful in many ways. It reduces the number of injections for the child, the number of visits to the clinic for parents, improves compliance with the vaccination schedule and makes it easy for both parents and the doctor to complete the schedule. It is a boon for parents.” He added that after the introduction of the combination vaccination fewer parents miss out on the vaccinations recommended for their child.

According to the immunization schedule of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, children would need to take the DTP-IPV-Hib-HepB vaccines at 6, 10 and 14 weeks. And 6 in 1 vaccination would mean that children take only 2 injections that is 6 in 1 vaccination and pneumococcal vaccination and 1 oral vaccine (rotavirus vaccination) on each of these occasions. Without the combination shot, children would have to take many more injections.

In recent years, India has intensified its efforts to increase immunization coverage, which has resulted in significant improvement as shown by the National Family Health Survey - NFHS-5. The percentage of children aged 12 to 23 months who are fully vaccinated has increased from 62 per cent (NFHS-4; 2015-16) to 76.4 per cent (NFHS-5; 2019-21) in India.

In Tamil Nadu, it has increased from 69.7% to 89.2%. A recent study has also demonstrated that there has been a marked improvement in immunization coverage in rural areas, but limited improvement in urban areas.

More needs to be done to make parents aware of the benefits of immunization and the availability of vaccines, to increase full immunization coverage to 90 per cent and beyond.

“The combine vaccination is not a new concept, it has been there for over 40 years. Now, they have added more antigens, the main is it increases the immunogenicity. Secondly, the combine vaccination decreases the number of pricks that you need to make on a baby. The vaccine list has gone up quite dramatically in recent years. And there is no specific side effect for combine vaccination,” said Dr Naresh Shanmugam, Director for Women and children division at Rela Hospital.