Introduction of newer vaccines in Immunization Programme of India: Challenges to be addressed

Abstract

Small Pox eradication will continue to be regarded as the humanity’s greatest triumph for all times to come. Since then, several health achievements were attained that too made significant contributions towards the goals of human survival and development. Substantial reductions in deaths and disabilities have been observed in diseases like childhood Tuberculosis, Pertussis, Diphtheria, Measles and paralytic Polio. In India, considerable reduction in vaccine preventable disease (VPD) burden was observed following launch of Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) in 1978. Reported number of Pertussis cases came down from 320109 (1980) to 25206 (2015). Measles cases reduced from 114036 to 25488 in the same time interval. Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus has been eliminated from most part of the world including India. There were 18975 paralytic Polio cases reported in 1980, which came down to ‘zero’ in 2011, and South-East Asia region including India declared free of WPV in 2014. We are at the end game phase of another great landmark, Polio eradication. In all these successes, immunization was the core intervention.Millennium Development Summit in 2000 focused on intensification of child health interventions for attainment of the MDG-4 of reducing under-five deaths. The benefits of traditional EPI vaccines are already evident. Worldwide, the projected number of deaths averted by Measles vaccine (including SIA rounds) during 2011-2020 will be around 14.1 million. Introduction of newer and less utilized vaccines may further boost the attainment of MDG-4. Universalizing Hepatitis-B vaccine may prevent 6 million child deaths by 2020. Newer vaccine Hib may avert 1.7 million deaths. Sustaining the current vaccines and upscaling the programme with newer vaccines is expected to prevent 25 million child deaths worldwide during 2011-2020. Also, a number of new vaccines, like malaria, dengue, new-generation tuberculosis and typhoid conjugate vaccines are in advanced stages of development and may be available in the coming years.