The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to introduce the rotavirus vaccine in its routine immunisation programme which is expected to protect 57 lakh children from diarrhoea.
At the launch of the scheme, the state’s Women and Child Welfare Minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi said “Rotavirus can cause extreme diarrhoea in children and can even be fatal in some cases. I am extremely happy that we have inducted the rotavirus vaccine in the routine immunisation programme which will protect our children from this deadly virus.”
Data indicates that almost 40 per cent of diarrhoea among children below the age of five years is caused by rotavirus and this causes approximately 78,000 deaths in the country.
The global disease burden of rotavirus has assumed such alarming propositions that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that all national immunisation programmes include the rotavirus vaccine. With UP including rotavirus under its immunisation programme, it becomes the eleventh state in India to launch a crackdown on the spread of this dreaded disease.
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