Typhoid vaccine in Nepal: 10 important things

What is typhoid?

Typhoid is a febrile illness caused by bacteria Named Salmonella Typhi. Typhoid fever is still a major global health problem epecially in developing and underdeveloped nations with more than 30 million cases per year worldwide.

Though mortality related to typhoid is less as compared to the morbidity, the burden itself is significantly high warranting more investment on research and treatment of typhoid fever.

Remember, typhoid fever is not same as typhus fever. Typhus fever is caused by Ricketssia while typhoid is caused by Salmonella.

There is similar parathyphoid fever which is also caused by Salmonell Paratyphi A and B.

Does typhoid vaccine cause fever in babies

Typhoid is a vacterial illness and It is also called one cause of fever of unknown origin as it is very difficult to diagnose the disease without long time wait and highly sofistication of the diagnostic lab. As othe bacterial ilnesses do, this also causes febrile illness and the fever is usually lasting upto 2 weeks. The biochemical and hematlogical markers of the typhoid fever are also not sensitive and sepcific but we shuld always keep typhoid as a differential diagnosis if we live in the poorer part of the world.

Introduction of Typhoid vaccine in Nepal

Typhid vaccine in Nepal was introduced in 2015 AD (2073 BS). This was done to prevent the highly prevalent and common typhoid fever especially in children of Nepal.

Research regarding typhoid fever and vaccination in Nepal

There are plenty of studies are done recently in Nepal regarding typhoid fever, its diagnosis and treatment in Nepal. There are also research done and also ongoing researches on typhoid vaccine in Nepal and it’s efficacy.

Though the researches are not adequate, this needs to be increased and the diagnosis, treatment should be more easy and accessible in Nepal.

Notable researches on typhoid in Nepal

Notable researcheson typhoid in Nepal include following:

Efficacy of typhoid conjugate vaccine in Nepal: final results of a phase 3, randomised, controlled trial
Incidence of typhoid and paratyphoid fever in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan: results of the Surveillance for Enteric Fever in Asia Project
Phase 3 efficacy analysis of a typhoid conjugate vaccine trial in Nepal
Estimating typhoid incidence from community-based serosurveys: A multicohort study in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Ghana
Typhoid versus typhus fever in post-earthquake Nepal

Most of these researches are done by studies based on Patan acadmy of health sciences and based on Lalitpur district. But lately the area os research has been widened to whole Nepal and more and more researches are coming out.

Typhoid vaccine

Multiole vaccines have been developed for prevention of typhoid fever using different technologies. In the beginning, killed vaccine (using acetone or phenol) were the first one while lately conjugate antigen based vaccines are produced and widely being used or clinically tested in the whole wide world. These newer typhoid vaccines include Ty21A and Vi antigen vaccine. The difference between those traditional and newer generation typhoid vaccines is that these vaccines are relatively safer with less side effects more efficacy. The side effects of typhoid vaccine will be discussed separately below.

Typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV)
Live attenuated Ty21a vaccine
Vi capsular polysaccharide vaccine (Vi-PS)