Paediatric Society appeals for pneumonia vaccines

THE Paediatric Society of Ghana has 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 society said the disease was one of the main causes of under-five deaths, claiming the lives of about 16,200 Ghanaian children each year.
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. Globally, the disease kills three children per minute.
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 yesterday ahead of the World Pneumonia Day, which falls on November 12 and is being celebrated on the theme “Fight Pneumonia. Save our Children”, a consultant paediatrician at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Professor Bamenla Goka, said 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.
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 mentioned risk factors of the infection to include weak immunity, malnutrition, sickle cell disease, premature baby, HIV, measles, whooping cough, unhealthy environment, smoke, excess sand, over-crowding and poor ventilation.
She indicated that early detection of the diseases helped in successful treatment and advised care providers to send children with symptoms of the disease to the nearest health facility.
She also advised against administration of cough mixtures in such cases since they had the tendency of worsening the condition of the sick child.
In her presentation, the National Child Health Co-ordinator of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, 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.
She said interventions put in place by the health sector to minimise the incidence of the disease included improving access, quality and demand for services, promotion of exclusive breastfeeding, hand-washing, as well as efforts to get health workers to offer immediate attention to suspected pneumonia cases.
Dr Sagoe-Moses said there existed vaccines for the prevention of haemophilus influenza B and measles, which could help to reduce pneumonia, adding that there were plans to introduce pneumococcal vaccine in the country by 2012.
The President of the Paediatric Society of Ghana, Dr Theresa Rettig, in her welcoming address, expressed the hope that the media would collaborate with health workers in the fight against pneumonia.