Vaccination against Pneumococcal Disease

Next week, I'll be bringing my son for his 2nd vaccination against pneumococcal disease. He has just completed the 2 doses of Rotavirus vaccination and one dose of the Pneumococcal vaccination 2 months back. Both vaccine was administered via injection on both cheek of his buttock, one jab on each side. Poor him. We paid RM455 in total for one dose of each vaccine. Expensive hor? But it saves life.

I heard from a friend who just got back from the UK that this jab is a compulsory vaccine in the UK. You may ask why it is so important? I too asked the same question, not so much to get an answer behind the "why" but more so to justify our need to fork out a lot for each jab. Mind you, there are numerous doses for this vaccine but worry not, these vaccination is spread across a span of 2 years. Your child will receive 1 - 4 doses depending on his or her age, beginning 4 months old. Your doctor will advise you accordingly. Each vaccine cost approx RM280 so I'll let you do the math. But read on...

Pneumococcal Disease (PnD):
PnD is not a new thing, in fact it has been in existence for quite a while except that not much awareness was brought about this form of disease. The vaccination can prevent infant against fatal infection caused by pneumococcal bacteria. This bacteria can cause serious infections such as pneumonia, middle ear infection, infection of the blood (bacteraemia) and meningitis. You can read more about PnD at http://www.nfid.org/factsheets/pneumofacts.shtml

In my recent reading, I found this article on Bernama website http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=327516 and thought you should know:

Pneumococcal disease (PnD) is estimated to kill one million children below
the age of five annually throughout the world.PnD is a highly contagious
disease that easily spreads among children in droplets released into the air
through sneezing or coughing.Infants from birth to 24 months faced the highest
risk to catch this deadly disease due to their low levels of circulating
pneumococcal antibodies, said Dr Zulkifli Ismail at a health science writers
workshop here Thursday.

Jacob had fever the first time he got the PnD jab but it subsided after two days. If your child has got fever after the jab, try to bring his/her fever down with the following:

1. Sponging him/her with a small wet towel or
2. Feed him/her 2.5ml of panadol syrup every 6 hourly or
3. Insert suppository paracetamol. To be inserted via anus (the dose is 15mg per kg and each supp is 125mg and can be given one every 6 hourly)

*But do not give 2 & 3 together.

This was prescribed by my son's paeds and my girlfriend who is a doctor. Please seek your doctor's advice before administering or feeding your child anything.