ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has highest infant mortality rate (IMR) in South Asia and the biggest contributor in this regard is low immunisation and vaccination coverage. With a mere 56% coverage, almost half of the children are not immunised in Pakistan. This was stated by health experts in a press briefing held to mark the World Immunisation Week. Prof Dr Rai Muhammad Asghar, Pakistan Pediatric Association president and the Allied Hospital Pediatrics Department head, said that immunisation was a proven tool for controlling and eliminating life-threatening infectious diseases and there was a dire need to increase the reach of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). “With the inclusion of Rotavirus diarrhea in EPI, the government is giving protection against 10 deadly diseases. It was responsibility of parents to bring their children to EPI centres and get them vaccinated. Increasing the coverage to 80% can reduce infant mortality rates drastically,” he said. He added that vaccines protected children by preparing their bodies to fight many potentially deadly diseases. “They are responsible to control many infectious diseases that were once common around the world, including smallpox, polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib),” he said. To a question why there was a need for vaccination, he said that every year, globally, pneumonia killed an estimated 1.2 million children under the age of five years, more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. “Rotavirus gastroenteritis was estimated to cause more than half a million child deaths. Two billion people are infected with Hepatitis B virus and about 780,000 people die, all of these can be prevented through vaccination and immunization,” Dr Rai said. Globally 17 % of deaths in under-five age group are due to vaccine preventable diseases. “Without vaccines, epidemics of many preventable diseases can return, resulting in increased – and unnecessary – illness, disability, and death,” he said. Talking about how vaccination change lives, Prof Dr Samiya Naeemullah, Islamic International Medical College Pediatrics Department head, said that measles vaccination resulted in a 75% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2013 worldwide. “Illnesses and complications caused by influenza can be reduced by up to 60%, and deaths by 80%, in elderly patients,” she said. “Polio cases have been reduced by 99% from over 300,000 per year in 1988 to less than 650 cases in 2011. Smallpox was eradicated globally in a time span of 10 years,” she said. She added that we have to educate parents about the importance of vaccination and persuade them to bring their children to the nearest EPI centers. “Despite the availability of free vaccines coverage is very low. Lack of awareness and socio cultural barriers are the biggest reason to it. Media is the only force which can create mass level awareness and help protect our children from deadly diseases,” she said.