India to expand Hib vaccine coverage and aims to maintain polio-free status
This article was originally published in Scrip
India plans to expand Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccination provision under its Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) to six additional states at an investment outlay of more than Rs3.32 billion ($64.6 million).
The government expects to introduce Hib vaccines as part of a liquid pentavalent vaccine (for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, hepatitis B and Hib) in the states of Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry, starting October 2012 to December 2014. The decision was made at a meeting of the mission steering group, the highest decision-making body of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), chaired by India's minister of health and family welfare, Ghulam Nabi Azad.
An additional outlay of Rs47.5 million for research as well as for strengthening supervision for introducing pentavalent vaccines was also approved at the meeting.
The government said that it would also continue to include Hib as part of a liquid pentavalent vaccine in the UIP in the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The pentavalent vaccine had been introduced on a pilot basis in the two states in mid-December 2011, with an "encouraging" initial response.
The meeting also dwelt on India's polio eradication strategy, which has been approved with an outlay of Rs42.49 billion. A government statement noted that based on the current needs of the programme and an increase in costs associated with "various activities", revised norms for the immunisation scheme were calculated and placed before the mission steering group, and had been approved. Details were not immediately available, though the government noted that sustained efforts were needed to eradicate polio.
The World Health Organisation had earlier this year taken India off the list of countries with active endemic wild poliovirus transmission, and minister Azad noted that the country had not seen a single wild poliovirus case for more than 15 months now.
India had already outlined plans to intensify routine immunisation coverage across the country and had expanded its UIP to include a second dose of the measles vaccine, among others (scripintelligence.com, 18 January 2012).
It also plans a special focus on 207 districts recording low routine immunisation coverage. About 26 million mothers and children have already been registered under a web-enabled tracking system set up by the health ministry. The system generates weekly work plans for auxiliary nurse midwives through SMS texts, with alerts also sent to the beneficiaries to remind them of the date of the due health services.
India, which hopes to be declared polio-free by 2014, remains mindful though of the risks that persist on account of indigenous transmission and importation of the virus from other endemic countries. Mr Azad has said in the past that there would be "zero tolerance" for any new polio cases and that such instances would be declared a public health emergency.