TEHRAN – Children can get free pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccinations in all medical centers across the country, the deputy health minister, Alireza Raeisi, has said.

Rotavirus can cause severe watery diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and abdominal pain. Children who get rotavirus disease can become dehydrated and may need to be hospitalized.

The vaccine is added to the country’s immunization program to prevent severe diarrhea in infants and their hospitalization. Annual rotavirus vaccination prevents the hospitalization of over 50,000 individuals. It will also prevent some 10,000 severe cases of diarrhea, IRNA reported.

Babies can get three doses of vaccine at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th months of life. The vaccine is administered by putting drops in the child’s mouth.

The national vaccination program against pneumococcal will prevent 1,500 deaths. The pneumococcal vaccine helps protect against some types of bacterial infections that can cause serious illnesses like meningitis (an infection in the brain and spinal cord) sepsis (a life-threatening reaction to an infection), and pneumonia (an infection in the lungs).

Pneumococcal vaccine can be injected when babies are 2, 4, and 12 months old. The vaccination is estimated to prevent the annual death of 1,100 children and the hospital admissions of more than 10,000 babies in the country.

The vaccination program to combat pneumococcal and rotavirus kicked off in February 2024 after being missed from the immunization schedule for a decade.

In June 2024, Farshad Hosseini, deputy health minister, announced that the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccination program would cover the entire country soon. “People should not be concerned about the [probable negative effects of] vaccines. Fortunately, surveys and studies have shown that pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines do not have any severe complications,” Hosseini stressed.

According to the head of the preventable diseases department of the ministry of health, Mohsen Zahraei, annual vaccination worldwide prevents the death of two and a half million children, which shows the very high effectiveness of vaccines

“We hope to be able to develop these two vaccines soon. Once the vaccines pass the quality control trials and obtain the Food and Drug Organization's approval, we will be able to use the domestic products in the national vaccination program, the official noted.

Some 2,000 billion rials (around 2.2 million dollars) has been allocated to the domestic production of the rotavirus vaccine.

MT/MG