JEDDAH, 4 July 2007 — A ghostly television advert for a new type of pneumococcal vaccine has caused a mad rush of parents flocking to hospitals to vaccinate their young children in scenes reminiscent to an advert for a rotavirus vaccine, which also caused a similar rush last month.
The pneumococcal advert begins with the camera showing a set of musical toys dangling over a baby’s cot and then moving to show the cot empty followed by a flash of writing saying the baby has died due to not being vaccinated. The advert further urged parents to vaccinate their young children.
“I don’t like this type of advertising. It made me feel that my children will die without the vaccine,” said Sarah Muhammad, a mother of two two-year-old twin boys.
According to the makers of the new vaccine, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, pneumococcal disease is responsible for about 1.2 million pneumonia deaths in infants and young children worldwide.
“The vaccine has been available for over five to six years. Children are annually dying because of diseases related to pneumococcal bacteria like pneumotitis and meningitis. The vaccine reduces the chances of catching them,” said a Wyeth representative.
Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, according to the National Immunization Program, is recommended for all newborn babies until 59 months, who are at high risk of catching pneumococcal bacterial disease. However, the vaccine is not absolutely necessary for all children and is given to children, whose parents are related and have thalasemia.
In Saudi Arabia, the Health Ministry has not yet decided whether the vaccine is among compulsory vaccinations in order for parents to secure birth certificates for their children.
Dr. Khaled Danish, consultant of neonatology at King Fahd Military Medical Complex in Dhahran, said his hospital is working on making the vaccine compulsory. “This is because marriages among relatives is very common in the Eastern Province, so the prevention is needed because there is a high risk of illnesses,” he said, adding that Wyeth Pharmaceuticals recently renewed the vaccine and that the advertisement is only for the new product.
“It is only a promotional campaign for a new product. However, it’s not a life and death issue. Sometimes these adverts are presented in an inappropriate way that scare people,” said Dr. Khaled Marghalani, an official Health Ministry spokesman.
On June 1, Arab News reported how repeated TV and radio advertisements about the necessity of vaccination against rotavirus scared many parents forcing them to take their newborns to clinics for vaccinations.
Although the Health Ministry did not issue a statement that there was an epidemic in the Kingdom, a private company was behind the adverts.
