What Does Our National Vaccination Policy Say And What's The History Of It?

Even as the tug-of-war over the stock of COVID-19 vaccine seems to come to an end with PM Narendra Modi announcing reshuffling the policy, it has become imperative to understand what is our national vaccination policy all about. Let's take a look.

National policy on vaccine

The Indian national policy on vaccine came into existence in 2011 after a dictate by Delhi High Court to Government of India to frame a national policy on dealing with introduction of new vaccines in National Immunization Program (NIP).

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A meeting of National Technical Advisory Group of Immunization (NTAGI) was called in August 2010, and sub-sequently, in September 2010, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) requested Ex-Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to draft first ever NVP.

Aim of national policy

The main purpose of this endeavor was to guide decision-making regarding various aspect of immunization, and to develop a long-term plan to strengthen the whole vaccine program in the country.

Other objectives of the national vaccine policy:

1. To contribute to prevention of mortality and morbidity due to communicable diseases.

2. To ensure consistent delivery and administration of vaccines to everyone in need.

3. To achieve national self-reliance in vaccine research & development (R&D).

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4. To achieve pre-eminence in the capabilities of the indigenous public sector for self-reliance.

5. To develop and use the interdisciplinary knowledge base.

6. To promote ethical conduct in the development, trials, adoption and administration of vaccines.

7. To develop a system for monitoring and compensating Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI).

8. To enable India to play a leading role in the supply of affordable vaccines.

9. To synergize all relevant policies for effective implementation of the national vaccine policy.

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Vaccine success story from the past

Immunization has been one of the greatest success stories of the 2000s and vaccines have proved to be the great public health tools. One disease, smallpox, had been eradicated; later poliomyelitis was eradicated too. India has been using vaccines since late 1970s in its NIP and currently running one of the largest mass immunization programs in the world.

Though polio elimination was achieved in the country through the limb of Universal Immunization Program (UIP) in India, the performance of the overall program in many other fields was still far from satisfactory. The Indian vaccine industry has also made great inroads in the national as well as global vaccine scenario and now regarded as a major force at international arena.

india vaccine shortage

With the availability of many new vaccines in the private sector in the country and at international level, the government is under pressure to introduce them in its NIP. However, scarcity of funds, and more importantly, the lack of competent technical advice are crippling its decision making prowess.