Health Talk | How eliminating polio has been one of the major successes of India's Universal Immunisation Programme

The role of vaccines in preventing severe disease or death has been well-established scientifically

The World Immunisation Day is observed every year on November 10th. The UN health body —the World Health Organisation (WHO) — started the practice of observing it in 2012.

The role of vaccines in preventing severe disease or death has been well-established scientifically. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC)

The thought behind dedicating a day to immunisation, according to experts, was to let governments highlight the role vaccines play in preventing infectious diseases and protecting public health so that enough awareness is generated among the masses for them to be open to the idea of getting their children vaccinated against killer diseases. Simply put, to promote the use of vaccines globally; more so in countries where vaccine coverage is abysmal.

The role of vaccines in preventing severe disease or death has been well-established scientifically. If one observes, the use of vaccines is a cost-effective way of eliminating diseases, especially in vulnerable population groups. It is beneficial not just at the individual level but also in developing herd immunity.

To the uninitiated, herd immunity, also known as 'population immunity', as WHO explains, is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.

According to the awareness materials issued by the UN health body, it supports achieving herd immunity through vaccination, not by allowing a disease to spread through any segment of the population, as this would result in unnecessary cases and deaths.

Some of the common vaccine-preventable diseases include measles, polio, tuberculosis, mumps, rotavirus-associated diarrhoea, rubella, shingles, tetanus, chicken pox, and Covid-19, which has been the latest pandemic that killed millions globally.

The killing streak of the fast-mutating Sars-Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19 disease, was hampered the world over only with the development of vaccines. It was a real challenge, which the scientists of the world successfully overcame by not just developing a vaccine against Covid-19 but developing it in less than a year. To put things in perspective, the process of developing a vaccine normally can take up to 10 years.

India is a classic example of what robust immunisation coverage against a disease can achieve in the form of the country's pulse polio programme, of which vaccination was a crucial part.

India rolled out the Pulse Polio Immunization Programme on October 2 1994, and according to WHO India statement, the country then accounted for around 60% of the global polio cases. However, India's success story amazed the whole world when it was declared polio-free within two decades. The last Polio case in India was reported in January 2011.

WHO attributed the success of eradication to "equitable access to vaccines to everyone, including the most marginalized and vulnerable groups living in the remotest parts of the country."

"A high commitment at every level led to policymakers, health workers, frontline workers, partners and community volunteers, working in tandem to deliver life-saving polio drops to every child wherever they were, be it at home, in school, or transit," read WHO statement on India's pulse polio programme.

Similarly, India also eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus in 2015.

India has several remote and hard-to-reach areas where it is quite a challenge to vaccinate children, and yet, according to the government data, the country’s full immunization coverage against 12 diseases has crossed 90%.

"With a targeted annual reach of around 2.67 crore newborns and 2.9 crore pregnant women, the UIP (Universal Immunisation Programme) has become one of the most cost-effective health interventions in the country, significantly reducing the under-5 mortality rate from 45 per 1000 live births in 2014 to 32 per 1000 live births (SRS 2020). With consistent efforts to reach and vaccinate all eligible children against vaccine-preventable diseases, the country’s Full Immunization Coverage for FY 2023-24 stands at 93.23% nationally," read the press and information bureau statement released last week.

It is no mean feat how India has been managing to effectively overcome the biggest hindrance an immunisation programme could face — vaccine hesitancy— among its people; we saw it with the Polio immunisation in the past and most recently with Covid-19 immunisation programme. 90% is great, but there is still a percentage, no matter how small, which is not vaccinated, either fully or partially. It's that population group that now needs to be focused upon for the UIP to be a 100% success.