Let’s save children from pneumonia through vaccination’

THIS year’s World Pneumonia Day was commemorated on the theme, “Fight Pneumonia. Save our Children”. As part of the event, the Paediatric Society of Ghana organised a press conference in Accra where the association appealed to the country’s development partners to include pneumococcal vaccine to the list of vaccines available in Ghana for the prevention of pneumonia.
The disease is considered one of the main causes of under-five deaths, claiming the lives of about 16,200 Ghanaian children each year.
It was also explained that if vaccines had helped to curb the incidence of measles and whooping cough among Ghanaian children, there was the need for a vaccine to prevent pneumonia to save the lives.
Pneumonia, a deadly infection, is caused by virus, bacteria or fungus and affects one or both lungs. It is one of the commonest causes of death among children below the age of five years.
Symptoms of the disease are high temperature, cough, fast breathing, in-drawing of chest wall and the tongue turning blue in very severe cases.
Addressing journalists in Accra ahead of the World Pneumonia Day, a consultant paediatrician at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Professor Bamenla Goka, indicated that risk factors of the infection included weak immunity, malnutrition, sickle cell disease, premature baby, HIV, measles, whooping cough, unhealthy environment, smoke, excess sand, over-crowding and poor ventilation.
Globally, pneumonia is considered one of the leading causes of death among children under five years and each year about 1.5 million children die from that condition. It is indicated that one child dies from pneumonia every 20 seconds accounting to 4,300 deaths in a day.
It is also estimated that 98 per cent of children who die from pneumonia live in developing countries which include Ghana.
Besides the loss through death, pneumonia causes needless suffering and stress on families and also contributes to poverty through the costs incurred from health care delivery, medications, transportation in and out of hospitals and the caretaker’s inability to work to cater for the other family members.
In her presentation, Professor Goka, who is a member of the Paediatric Society of Ghana, said at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital alone, about 510 pneumonia cases were recorded each year with about 32 per cent of deaths involving children who were about one month old.
She indicated that early detection of the disease could help in successful treatment and advised care providers to send children with symptoms of the disease to the nearest health facility.
To protect our children from pneumonia, she said there was the need to provide a healthy environment for their growth.
That, according to child care experts, could be achieved through inexpensive practices such as, exclusive breastfeeding, adequate nutrition, reducing indoor pollution, encouraging hand washing in schools and homes and taking steps to address the issue low birth weight.
To prevent pneumonia, immunisation against the organisms causing pneumonia is a vital step and some of these vaacines could be accessed under Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI).
Information provided to the media by the Paediatric Society of Ghana at the press conference indicated that Hib vaccine, measles and pertussis vaccines are safe and effective and had led to a remarkable decline in pneumonia deaths. The society therefore called for universal coverage of those vaccines, as well as introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine.
It also explained that because HIV and AIDS weakened the immune system, there was the need to strengthen the preventive campaigns to reduce the spread and that included the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme.
Another point raised was the importance of zinc supplementation which had been found to prevent and reduce death from pneumonia.
The National Child Health Co-ordinator of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, for her part said in 2008, pneumonia ranked fourth highest among the conditions seen at the outpatients department (OPDs) as well as among admissions in the country’s health facilities.
Interventions put in place by the health sector to minimise the incidence of the disease, according to Dr Sagoe-Moses included improving access, quality and demand for services, promotion of exclusive breastfeeding and hand-washing.
She also indicated that health workers had been sensitised to offer immediate attention to suspected pneumonia cases since the disease was deadly and deserved prompt attention, adding that there existed vaccines for the prevention of haemophilus influenza B and measles, which could help to reduce pneumonia
She gave the assurance that there were plans to introduce pneumococcal vaccine which was used in the prevention of pneumonia in the country by 2012.
As part of its objectives, the Paediatric Society of Ghana, in conjunction with International Paediatric Associations seeks to educate the public about the causes and dangers of pneumonia and also draw the attention of interest groups on how to prevent and combat the disease among children.