A review on Indian national vaccine policy

Abstract

Vaccines are one of the most successful health interventions that bring about significant reductions in infectious diseases and adverse health consequences and improve quality of life in the population. Over the years vaccines have provided highly cost effective improvements to human health by reducing avoidable human suffering, costs of care and treatment, economic consequences of work i.e. lower productivity and loss of work. More and more diseases are becoming vaccine preventable; including those for prominent killers like pneumonia and diarrhea, and the technology used is evolving rapidly. Since vaccines are administered to healthy people, especially children, it is pivotal to ascertain they are safe and cost effective. Consequently vaccine development has become time and resource intensive, with more stringent regulatory pathways to ensure safety and efficacy of vaccines. In a situation where there is abundance of new and expensive vaccines on one hand and limitations of resources on the other, it becomes imperative that use of vaccines through induction in the universal immunization program (UIP) as well as in the free market is done through a framework of decision-making that confers positive health and economic benefits to the society.