India is one of the largest producers of vaccines in the world, but, shockingly, at least 35 per cent of its total kids do not get all the vaccines under the Government’s immunisation programme while some of them do not get even a single vaccine.
With 27 million children annually, India has the largest birth cohort in the world.
Raising serious concern at this gap, PK Mahaptra, Additional Chief Secretary from Haryana, Health Department said, “ India is one of the largest producers of vaccines in the world. The national immunization programme was started way long back in 70s. Still we have just 65 per cent of the total kids getting immunized. Somewhere we have failed.”
Mahapatra was speaking at 2nd Health and immunization conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here. The theme was “leveraging opportunities in last mile immunisation”
Joint Secretary (Health Research Wing) Rakesh Kumar said on Thursday that efforts are on to reach out to cover maximum number of children under Indradhanush immunisation programme . He said the government has immunized close to 15 lakh children under the first phase of ‘Indradhanush’ in 201 districts, where the immunisation was less than 50 per cent in the last two years.
Approximately 53 lakh children have been partially vaccinated and 15 lakh have been totally immunised, Kumar added. Dr Pradeep Haldar added the mission will reach the unreached(children) with all vaccines by 2020.
Indradhanush provides protection against seven life-threatening diseases (Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Tetanus, Polio, Tuberculosis, Measles and Hepatitis B). In addition, vaccination against Japanese Encephalitis and Haemophilus influenza type B will be provided in selected districts of the country. New vaccines are on cards to be added in the programme, said Haldar.
While KG Ananthakrishnan, Co-chair, CII national committee on pharma, hoped that drones might be introduced soon for rural transportation of vaccines to reachout unreached kids, Rahul Aggarwal, MD, Kool-Ex stressed on cold-chain logistics management and accountability as vital for vaccine distribution in rural areas.