The government for the first time has set an ambitious target to administer typhoid vaccine to some five crore children and adolescents amid pervasive public hesitation.
Many parents said that they were still in hesitation about their children receiving the free vaccine made in India, which was not administrated in any country of the world on such a large scale, except in some third world countries on a small scale.
However, Expanded Programme on Immunisation programme manager Abul Fazal Md Shahabuddin Khan said that the vaccine had already been tested and no negative impacts had been found on those who had received it.
He said that with the support of the GAVI, a public-private partnership focused on increasing access to immunisation in poorer countries, they would obtain the vaccine.
鈥楾he government is not spending any money on the vaccine lot Bangladesh would receive,鈥� he said.
Dhaka University Health Economics Institute professor Syed Abdul Hamid questioned, 鈥榃hen the GAVI was withdrawing its support from other vaccination programmes, their reason for coming to aid typhoid vaccination in Bangladesh might pose a question.鈥�
However, he said that the vaccine was good for people to the best of his knowledge. The vaccine could help reduce fatalities from the typhoid fever.
Still, many parents expressed their scepticism if their children should take the vaccine as they were scared if the vaccine had any side effects and if it had efficacy.
Nishat Rahman, mother of a three-year-old girl, living in Mirpur, said that she did not register for the vaccination of her child because she first wanted to observe how the vaccine fared.
鈥楴obody has taken this vaccine earlier. I don鈥檛 have any idea about the vaccine鈥檚 performance. I am scared if anything negative happens if a child takes the vaccine,鈥� said Nishat, who herself is a microbiology graduate.
Officials said the government will administer Typhibev, a typhoid conjugate vaccine produced by Biological E, India.
Typhibev was originally developed by the Glasgo Smith Kline Vaccines Institute for Global Health in Siena, Italy, before being licenced for production.
According to pharmaceutical industry sources, the vaccine is priced at about Tk 3,200 per 0.5 ml vial in the local retail market. Domestically assembled alternatives are available at lower prices, with Renata Limited producing Typar TCV, which costs around Tk 2,500聽 per 0.5 ml vial.
Officials said that the vaccine meets the World Health Organization standards and had already been introduced in several countries in the region, including Nepal and Pakistan, and, Liberia and Zimbabwe in Africa.
Pharmacists said that the vaccine could cause some mild to moderate side effects like pain, redness on skin of body parts, or swelling at injection site and headache in certain individuals.
EPI officials said that they had several teams to monitor and support if any such things happened after the immunisation.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services, so far 20,34,726 children and adolescents were registered in the past 22 days to get vaccination.
Health service officials said that they targeted vaccinating approximately five crore people between nine months and 15 years under this jabbing campaign beginning on October 12.
The bacteria-borne disease is still a public health concern because Bangladesh counted annually 5,00,000 typhoid cases and just over 7,500 deaths, according to the Global Burden of Disease estimation in 2019.
According to the World Health Organisation, typhoid fever is a systemic infection caused by Salmonella Typhi, usually through ingestion of contaminated food or water.
Though there are several vaccines available against the bacterial fever but people don鈥檛 take any of them.
The acute illness is characterised by prolonged fever, headache, nausea, loss of appetite, and constipation or sometimes diarrhoea. Symptoms are often non-specific and clinically indistinguishable from other febrile illnesses.
Abul Fazal Md. Shahabuddin Khan said that they would provide the vaccine free of cost for the people between nine months and 15 years to sensitise people with the vaccine but later only nine-month-old kids would get one dose free of cost under the EPI programme.
Then the government will purchase the typhoid vaccine for children to supply it free of cost.
The single-dose injectable vaccine provides protection for up to seven-year-old children. After every duration, people need to be vaccinated again to get protection from typhoid.
Officials advised people to receive the vaccine by positively registering at https://vaxepi.gov.bd/registration/tcv
The registration portal will remain open even during the 18 days of administration period. For the first 10 days, vaccines will be administered at school and madrassah camps while they will be available at the EPI centres for the following eight days.
A 17-digit birth registration certificate number will be required. Registration has begun on August 1. After registration, the vaccine card can be downloaded directly using the birth registration certificate.