New Delhi: The vaccine against rotavirus, the latest entrant to the Union government’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), has reduced the prevalence of cases by nearly 33.7 percent, deaths by 38.3 percent and total antibiotic misuse due to rotavirus infection by about 21.
8 percent, in children under five years of age. India piloted the rotavirus vaccine in few states on 26 March, 2016, becoming the first nation from the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s South East Asia region to introduce the vaccine. These findings have emerged in an important analysis titled ‘ Effect of rotavirus vaccination on the burden of rotavirus disease and associated antibiotic use in India: A dynamic agent-based simulation analysis’ .
The study, conducted by US based-researchers, was published online this month in the journal Vaccine . The ScienceDirect website (database of peer-reviewed scientific, technical and health-related literature) states that the issue will be published 17 September. The analysis has been carried out as part of the Value of Vaccination Research Network (VoVRN), an initiative by Harvard university.
Endemic in India, rotavirus is a leading cause of severe diarrhoea and requires hospitalisation. The country has the second-highest burden of disease globally, after Nigeria. India launched a childhood immunisation programme for rotavirus in 2016, starting with four states—Haryana, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh—which was expanded to cover all states .