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Govt May Have To Fully Foot Universal Immunization Bill

The centre will soon have to fully finance its universal immunization programme, with external funding support for vaccines ending for India.

The ministry of health and family welfare has recently released the comprehensive multi-year plan for immunization, which will cost the government an estimated ₹52,220 crore between 2018 and 2022. This is 52% more than the ₹34,336 crore the country had spent between 2013 and 2017.

The costs include expenses associated with routine vaccines, cold chains, transportation, disease surveillance, and personnel. The per-year cost is estimated to increase from₹8,764 crore in 2018 to ₹12,364 crore in 2022.

India will stop receiving support from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), which had provided $749.6 million to introduce new vaccines and strengthen India’s health system between 2000 and 2018.

The ministry aims to achieve and sustains immunization coverage of 90% by 2020 through Mission Indradhanush. It also aims to introduce and scale up the use of new vaccines, including the Rotavirus Vaccine (RVV), Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV), and Human Papillomavirus Vaccine (HPV). The centre also continuously allocates funds for upgrading the infrastructure and human resources, including logistics, cold chains, surveillance and data management systems.

The government has set a target of eliminating measles and controlling rubella by 2020. This will be done by scaling up MR vaccine coverage to over 95%, and ensuring that cases are limited to less than 5 per million population every year.

“India has never been dependant on GAVI for funds. The support has been catalytic and less than 10% always. We have released the estimates for further policy planning. We have funds for vaccines, but in future we will need more funds because if there is no vaccine security, it will have a direct impact on children, which we can’t afford,” said Pradeep Haldar, deputy commissioner, immunization, Union health ministry. “We are focusing on indigenous vaccines and sensitizing the manufactures to scale up production,” he said.

Immunization levels remain low in the country, despite there being an immunization programme for more than three decades now.

Only 62% of India’s children had received all recommended vaccines, according to the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4).

Amid the current situation for children, the government doesn’t have a policy on adult vaccination.

“While there is a lot of focus and effort to increase much-needed vaccination coverage among children, adult immunization remains neglected and highly underutilized in India. Critical diseases such as tetanus, human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis, meningococcal, pneumococcal disease and influenza can be effectively prevented by getting vaccinated. We need to increase our health budget,” said Dharminder Nagar, managing director, Paras Healthcare. – Livemint

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