Jaipur: To reduce infant mortality rate (IMR), Rajasthan will introduce a new vaccine "Pentavalent" for children below the age of one year, a health official said Wednesday.
The new vaccine, being introduced from November one free of cost at government hospitals in the state, will bring down IMR by about 2 to three per cent, the official said.
It would be administered to children below the age of one year at a frequency of 45 days, 75 days, and 105 days in all government-run hospitals free of cost, quoting a plan formulated after a sensitisation programme undertaken jointly by the state government and UNICEF recently, he said.
IMR in Rajasthan is 47 per 1,000 live births and as per millennium development goal (MDG), it has to be brought down to
28 per 1,000 live births by the end of 2015, the official said.
The vaccine will be administered to 16.5 lakh children per annum and would prevent child from five diseases namely Diphtheria, Pertussis (whooping cough), Tetanus, Hepatitis-B, and HIB (haemophilus influenza). HIB disease generally affects children up to the age of five years and it causes lethal disease like pneumonia and meningitis (brain fever).
According to state medical and health department data, about 1.7 lakh children get affect by HIB and around 4,000 children get die, so new vaccine will contain IMR and vaccines like DPT and Hepatitis-B would be replaced by 'Pentavalent', the official said.
