KARACHI – Pakistan has become the first country in the world to introduce anew typhoid vaccine, officials said Friday, as the country grapples with anongoing outbreak of a drug-resistant strain of the potentially fataldisease.
The vaccine, approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), will be usedduring a two-week immunisation campaign in southern Sindh province.
Sindh is where most of Pakistan’s 10,000 cases of typhoid have beendocumented since 2017.
“The two-week campaign beginning from today would target over 10 millionchildren of nine months to 15 years of age,” Azra Pechuho, the healthminister in Sindh province, said in Karachi on Friday.
The new vaccines have been provided by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to thePakistani government free of cost.
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After the two-week campaign, it will be introduced into routineimmunisations in Sindh, and in other areas of Pakistan in the coming years.
In 2017, 63 percent of the typhoid cases documented and 70 percent of thefatalities were children, according to a joint press release from thePakistani government, WHO and Gavi.
