Official Blog of Mother & Infant Foundation

As a Pediatrician working in USA, but having seen both worlds (India and USA), I am convinced that vaccines save lives and are abundantly useful in preventing diseases. Kids in developing world continue to be easy victims of diseases which are so easliy preventable via vaccines! Even if we do not talk about death (mortality), why should kids even suffer (morbidity) when vaccines are available. I have seen how diseaes like Measles, Polio, HiB, Pneumococcal wreak havoc just because the kids never got a chance to receive inoculations againt them!
I am surprised with the degree of resistance against vaccines in the West (anti-vaxers). It is simply unfortunate. In developing countries like India, the low vaccination rates are due to lack of knowledge/awarenss and lack of accessibility to vaccines.
All the grounds (Autism for example) based on which anti-vaxers continue to denounce vaccines are not scientifically proven.
On a global level, vaccines are not an optional choice, they are a MUST to decrease sufferings and deaths from diseases that can be prevented (Vaccine-preventable Diseases). Vaccines have given brighter futures to billions of kids across the globe and will continue to. Bill Gates has rightly said that vaccines are truly a modern world miracle and help us save lives easily and cost-effectively.

Thus, at Mission India Foundation we continue to do what is closer to our heart: Provide shots to children and make a difference.

India -like other low-middle income countries- has a huge deficit in immunizations. On a national level, vaccination rates for kids in age 12-23 months are 61 %. According to NHFS III (2007) less than 44 % of kids actually get full set of 6 vaccines. Thus, despite government’s best efforts, vaccination rates have not improved in the last decade (in 1992, percentage of fully immunized kids was 42 %). More than 90 % vaccine administration happens via Federal and State government health facilities spread across towns and villages, with private healthcare sector accounting for only 10 % of vaccine administrations.

Unlike in West, where there is a strong anti-vaccine lobby, in a developing country like India, low vaccination rates are due to lack of health and vaccine awareness. In a UNICEF survey 2009, 55 % of parents or guardians of kids with no or partial  immunization stated ‘not knowing about vaccines’ or ‘did not feel need’ as the reasons. Other prominent reasons that leaped out were: time not convenient, vaccine not available (at govt facility), wrong advice by someone.

Medical experts recommend that in a community, vaccination rates should be minimum 80 % so as to give benefit to even the unprotected by a phenomenon called “Herd Immunity” or “Herd Effect”. In USA, national average of immunization rates for majority of vaccines is 90-94 %. In India, it is in sixties.

We at Mission India Foundation are of the firm opinion that by creating health awareness about the vaccines and providing them to the kids as many as we can reach, we are right at target! After all, when we give an inoculation to a child, we reap the dividend (prevention from disease) later on! Is this not a safe investment?

It came to me as a shock while reading an essay by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen which mentioned that India stands lower than its neighbors as far as Immunization rates are concerned. For example, DPT coverage in India in 2008 stood at 66 %, whereas all our neighboring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka achieved rates ranging from 80 to 96 %. So is the case with Measles vaccination rate.

This data is from World Bank:  World Development Indicators (www.data.worldbank.org)

The fact remains that there is an unmet need in the field of immunization that we have to fulfill. There are many reasons for the huge vaccine deficit in India: Lack of awareness about importance of vaccines in the public, insufficient allocation of budget for the vaccines, and lack of political will. Mission India Foundation is making concerted efforts to increase pubic awareness about the vaccines and making vaccines available in remote parts of India. Through our Vaccine Centers, we provide valuabe vaccines to kids.

Here is the link to Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze’s essay “Putting Growth in its Place” published in Outlook India magazine, November 2011: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278843

November 12 is World Pneumonia Day. Mission India Foundation considers it as an opportune day to highlight the problem that exists in kids and adults and how vaccines can save lives.

Pneumonia, an inflammation or infection of the lungs most commonly caused by a bacteria or virus, is the world’s most important cause of child death.  It claims one young life every 20 seconds; that’s more than 1.5 million children who die from pneumonia each year. That totals more than all cases of AIDS, Malaria and Measles combined.  In the US, it is the fifth leading cause of death when combined with the flu making it the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death. In 2001, the Centers for Disease Control upon advice from its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recommended that the Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine be administered to every infant and young child in the US. According to current US vaccination schedules, all children should receive four doses, between 2 months to one year and fifteen months of age.

However, 98% of all childhood deaths from pneumonia occur in developing nations, many of whom don’t have access to this valuable vaccine.  More than one million young lives can be saved annually with vaccines and antibiotics, reducing indoor air pollution and through breastfeeding for the first six months of life.

With adequate use of antibiotics and vaccines like Pneumococcal vaccine, the incidence of pneumonia can be reduced by 49 %.

Find out more about how you can help fight pneumonia by visiting www.worldpneumoniaday.org.

Jharkhand, India

A boy suffering from pneumonia shivers underneath a blanket while his parents work on a farm in Jharkhand, India.

Photographer’s Note: This is a close portrait of a boy suffering from pneumonia. His nose is running and he has gone under a blanket shivering. I noticed him waiting in a corner of an agricultural farm house while his parents, both of them daily wage laborers, were busy in the farm operation. When I asked for consent to photograph the child, they gladly accepted on condition that I would bring them a copy of the child’s photo. I did not realize until then that I was going to take a photograph of a pneumonia patient for the first time in my life. When I went close to the child for an intimate portrait, I discovered that he was ill. While I was taking photographs, his parents went on urging him for a smile. He did not break a single one. I came to know that he was suffering from pneumonia and the doctor in a local health centre had advised the parents to take him to the nearby town for treatment. This photo is yet another example of the clear absence of health care providers in the interior rural areas.

© 2008 Somenath Mukhopadhyay, Courtesy of Photoshare