Fiji's vaccine program reduces childhood death and illness: study

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/uom-fvp112420.php

News Release 25-Nov-2020
University of Melbourne

Fiji's national vaccine program against pneumonia, a serious lung condition, and rotavirus, a common disease which causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting, has reduced illness and death, new research shows.


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Published in The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific, the first study looked at Fiji's national rotavirus vaccine program five years after it became the first independent Pacific island country to introduce the vaccine in 2012, and one of few in the Asia-Pacific region.

Morbidity (disease or symptom) and mortality (death) due to rotavirus and all-cause diarrhoea in Fiji fell in those aged two months to 55 years. Rotavirus diarrhoea admissions at the largest hospital among children aged under five fell by 87 per cent.

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Five years after the vaccine was introduced, hospital admissions for all-case pneumonia had fallen for children aged 24-59 months.

Mortality was down by 39 per cent among children aged two-24 months who were admitted to hospital with all-case pneumonia, bronchiolitis, and asthma.

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