Injectable polio vaccine to be part of immunisation plan
29 July 2014 6:42 AM IST
While unveiling a package of measures to curb child diarrhoea deaths in the country, union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday said that injectable inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) will soon become part of immunisation programme in the country.
Also the introduction of pentavalent vaccine, which offers protection against five disease, under the immunisation programme will be completed across the country by April next year.
India has relied on oral polio vaccine (OPV) to successfully eradicate the crippling disease but OPV has very remote but real possibility of its virus turning virulent and IPV will also keep community's immunity level high, Vardhan said.
Out of all the states and Union Territories, eight have already introduced pentavalent vaccines, 11 more will do by October this year and the remainder 17 will do so by April next year, he said.
Launching the Intensified Diarrhoea Control fortnight, he said it is a matter of 'deep sorrow' for the country that it is still losing anywhere between 13-14 lakh children aged under 5 to various preventable diseases and over 2 lakh of them are to diarrhoea alone.
'Every year we do routine programmes and out concerns have also become routine. We lack the intensity and energy required to deal with these challenges. We must join all our forces together to make our fight against infant mortality a social movement,' he said.
Also the introduction of pentavalent vaccine, which offers protection against five disease, under the immunisation programme will be completed across the country by April next year.
India has relied on oral polio vaccine (OPV) to successfully eradicate the crippling disease but OPV has very remote but real possibility of its virus turning virulent and IPV will also keep community's immunity level high, Vardhan said.
Out of all the states and Union Territories, eight have already introduced pentavalent vaccines, 11 more will do by October this year and the remainder 17 will do so by April next year, he said.
Launching the Intensified Diarrhoea Control fortnight, he said it is a matter of 'deep sorrow' for the country that it is still losing anywhere between 13-14 lakh children aged under 5 to various preventable diseases and over 2 lakh of them are to diarrhoea alone.
'Every year we do routine programmes and out concerns have also become routine. We lack the intensity and energy required to deal with these challenges. We must join all our forces together to make our fight against infant mortality a social movement,' he said.
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