Universal Immunization Programme is a vaccination program launched by the Government of India in 1985. It became a part of Child Survival and Safe Motherhood Programme in 1992 and is currently one of the key areas under National Rural Health Mission(NRHM) since 2005. The program now consists of vaccination for 11 diseases- tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, Hepatitis B, Diarrhoea, Japanese Encephalitis, rubella and Pneumonia. Hepatitis B was added to the UIP in 2007.
In 2014 it was announced that four vaccines will be added to the program, namely rotavirus, rubella and Japanese encephalitis, as well as the injectable polio vaccine. Four new vaccines have been introduced into the country’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), including injectable polio vaccine and an adult vaccine against Japanese Encephalitis.
Vaccines against rotavirus, rubella and polio (injectable) will help the country meet its Millennium Development Goals 4 targets that include reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, besides meeting meet global polio eradication targets. An adult vaccine against Japanese encephalitis will also be introduced in districts with high levels of the disease. The recommendations to introduce these new vaccines have been made after numerous scientific studies and comprehensive deliberations by the National Technical Advisory Group of India (NTAGI), the country’s apex scientific advisory body on immunisation.
Vaccines have been a contentious issue in public health circles, with some doctors urging caution in the choice of vaccines introduced while expanding the immunisation programme, from both a safety and economic perspective. With these new vaccines, India’s UIP will now provide free vaccines against 13 life threatening diseases, to 27 million children annually. Calling it one of the most significant health policies in the last 30 years, the note pointed out that the latest decision along with the recently introduced pentavalent vaccine, will help prevent death in about one lakh infants and adults in the working age group, besides putting a stop to about 10 lakh hospitalizations each year.
“The introduction of four new lifesaving vaccines, will play a key role in reducing the childhood and infant mortality and morbidity in the country. Many of these vaccines are already available through private practitioners to those who can afford them. The government will now ensure that the benefits of vaccination reach all sections of the society, regardless of social and economic status,” the PM said.
From February 2017, Union ministry of health and family welfare will roll out Measles-Rubella vaccine from UIP.