Injectable polio vaccine to be introduced by end 2015

New Delhi: The health ministry is planning to introduce injectible polio vaccine through the universal immunization programme (UIP) by the third quarter of 2015, a senior government official said.

This vaccine will be linked with the global endgame strategy for polio which aims to eradicate the disease by 2018.

This follows the government’s announcement earlier this month that it is inducting four new vaccines to UIP, including vaccines against rotavirus, rubella, polio (injectible) and adult Japanese encephalitis.

The health ministry is carrying out preparedness assessment and orienting a large number of health workers to the new vaccines.

According to the global endgame strategy, both wild and vaccine-derived poliovirus need to be addressed in parallel, using a global vaccine switch to manage long-term poliovirus risks. Under the strategy, to eliminate the risk of illness from vaccine-derived poliovirus, oral polio vaccines (OPV) containing type 2 polio virus will be phased out and inactivated polio vaccines (IPV) will be gradually introduced.

“Introducing the IPV is a risk mitigation measure and will boost population immunity. One of the threats from polio today is vaccine-derived polio, hence we aim to phase out the trivalent oral polio vaccine by 2016,” said Ajay Khera, joint secretary, ministry of health and family welfare.

Not all health experts agree with this strategy.

“Once IPV is introduced, the OPV will be withdrawn and we will have bad epidemics of polio among the babies not immunized. Importation from neighbouring countries will happen and all the excellent work of polio eradication will get undone,” said Jacob Puliyel, department of paediatrics, St Stephen’s Hospital in New Delhi.

According to rough estimates, the government spends Rs.1,000 crore on routine vaccines in India, and another Rs.1,000 crore on polio vaccines, Khera said. “To introduce these four new vaccines, we will roughly have to spend Rs.3,500 crore.”