Experts Discussed the Need and Challenges for Introducing the Newer Vaccines in India

By Samachar Vishesh News

Chandigarh 25^th July:- PGIMER’s National workshop on Vaccinology witnessed a league of visionaries discussed about the need and challenges in vaccine introduction in India. Dr. Madhu Gupta, Professor, Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, PGIMER, course coordinator emphasized that this national level workshop goes a long way to meet the objective of creating awareness regarding need of introducing effective vaccines in the national immunization schedule in India. 

Dr Gagandeep Kang, Executive Director, Translational Health and Science Technology in India and Professor, Department of Gastrointestinal Sciences, CMC, Vellore said that there are many vaccines that are not in the National Immunization Program even though the disease burden exists like Typhoid. This gap is usually filled by prioritization and decision-making in the introduction of vaccines.

Dr Disha Patani from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, briefed the audience about recent updates like introduction of pneumococcal vaccine to prevent pneumonia, rotavirus vaccine to prevent severe rotavirus related diarrhea in the India.

Dr. Pankaj Bhatnagar, Technical officer-Immunization, WHO, highlighted that the need to strengthen the urban immunization in the cities with slum population.

Dr Suresh Dalpath Deputy Director, Public Health Planning and M & E Haryana and Dr. Rajesh Bhaskar, Program Officer-Injection Safety, Department of Health and Family Welfare, shared their experiences on introduction of pneumococcal vaccine human papilloma virus vaccine in Haryana and Punjab respectively.

Dr. Saurabh Sharma, Country lead, Health Policy, India, Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation commented upon innovations on data tools, supply chain and delivery.

Dr. Manmeet Kaur, Professor of Health Promotion, School of Public Health & Community Medicine, PGIMER emphasized the role of advocacy in the implementation of newer vaccines.

 Ms. Molly Saur, Deputy Director, Policy, Advocacy & Communications, International Vaccine Access Centre Johns-Hopkins University stressed we need to deal with vaccine hesitancy to increase the acceptance of newer vaccines in the community.

Mr. Daniel Erchick, Senior Director, Global Health Strategies, New Delhi, mentioned that there is need to convert the evidence related to reduction of disease burden by use of effective vaccine to health policy.