This weekend I had a interesting presentation on Rotavirus presentation in our local IAP (Indian Academy of Pediatrics) meet of Pediatricians of Chandigarh, Panchkula & Mohali tri-city.
What is the rotavirus? Just the commonest cause of diarrhea in children, killing more than 1 lakh children in India alone!
You can get the entire presentation here. It was fun to read up this disease, since in office practice I tend to not get in a lot of academic reading about specific illnesses. While I am using the presently only available Rotavirus vaccine (Rotarix by GSK), there were still a few surprises for me. The large number of deaths worldwide caused by this virus were astounding, more so the fact (as you can read in the presentation ) that India has the largest number of deaths by far.
Since the presentation, I would probably be a bit more aggressive in suggesting this vaccine to affording parents with children under the age of 6 months. While the vaccination is at present slightly expensive (around INR 1,000 - 1,500 per dose), since it is imported and being marketed by a multinational, an Indian Rotavirus Vaccine is likely in the next few years, making a serious dent to the large number of preventable deaths due to rotavirus.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Rotavirus presentation
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment