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Immunization Provides Direct And Effective Protection Against Preventable Diseases Essay

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Immunization provides direct and effective protection against preventable diseases, and hence it is one of the most cost effective public health interventions. Vaccines are preventing 2-3 million deaths due to diphtheria, pertussis(whooping cough) tetanus and measles worldwide. WHO launched the Expanded Immunization Program (EPI) in 1974 against 6 vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) namely, diphtheria, polio, tuberculosis, pertussis, measles and tetanus. Government of India introduced EPI in 1978, which was later changed to Universal Immunization Program (UIP) in 1985.
In reality, the aim with which UIP started, that is to reduce burden of VPDs, is only partially achieved. VPDs are still responsible for around 5, 00,000 deaths in India out of the total 1.5 million deaths in world. India is one of the countries with lowest immunization coverage in the world. According to data from National Family Health Survey 2005-06 (NFHS 3), only 43.5% of children aged between 12-23 months were fully vaccinated. (Fully immunized child is the one who has completed the recommended schedule of BCG, DPT, 3 doses of OPV and measles vaccine before 1 year of age) According to UNICEF coverage evaluation survey 2009, 61% of children between age 12-23 months were fully immunized in India and 7.6% of same age children did not receive any vaccination. The same survey also reports that drop- out rates were also significantly high and differed for different vaccines. Drop- out rate for BCG-DPT3 was 18%,

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