Tuesday, 9th February 2021 | 6:30 PM IST
LIVE ON FACEBOOK
In 1977, smallpox eradication lead to improved health systems, trained manpower to administer vaccines, infrastructure and systems to store vaccines and a network for surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases. The lessons from this success were used universally to strengthen public healthcare, vaccination and develop a pool of public health professionals. In 1978, after it was declared free of smallpox, India launched the National Immunization Programme called the Expanded Programme of Immunization and since then has been one of the leading countries to introduce mass immunization measures for preventable diseases.
Although the Immunization programme in India has partially succeeded in reducing the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases; a significant proportion of them still exist. Moreover, there remains a wide gap in reported versus evaluated coverage. Now, with more than 16 lakh people already vaccinated in India and with 300 million targeted priority groups, India has initiated the largest ever vaccination drive. However, some previous challenges with vaccination delivery and infrastructure continue to persist. Supplementing them is the burden of health emergencies and diseases like HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and Cancer, that have received less attention with the resources of an over crunched health system directed towards overcoming the pandemic. A case in point is India's ongoing battle with TB with more than 2.5 million cases reported each year and more than 0.4 million deaths per annum - one of the highest in the world.