Vaccine Policy in India

India enjoyed early initial successes in vaccine development and indigenous production of vaccines in the public sector. But the country now faces a growing gap between the demand for and supply of essential vaccines

Evidence-based national vaccine policy

India has over a century old tradition of development and production of vaccines. The Government rightly adopted self-sufficiency in vaccine production and self-reliance in vaccine technology as its policy objectives in 1986. However, in the absence of a full-fledged vaccine policy, there have been concerns related to demand and supply, manufacture vs. import, role of public and private sectors, choice of vaccines, new and combination vaccines, universal vs. selective vaccination, routine immunization vs. special drives, cost-benefit aspects, regulatory issues, logistics etc. The need for a comprehensive and evidence based vaccine policy that enables informed decisions on all these aspects from the public health point of view brought together doctors, scientists, policy analysts, lawyers and civil society representatives to formulate this policy paper for the consideration of the Government. This paper evolved out of the first ever ICMR-NISTADS national brainstorming workshop on vaccine policy held during 4-5 June, 2009 in New Delhi, and subsequent discussions over email for several weeks, before being adopted unanimously in the present form

Development of simplified body mass index–based field charts to assess nutritional status and weight gain in adult patients with tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) is a cause and effect of undernutrition. Patients with active TB in India have a high prevalence of severe undernutrition, an important comorbidity, which increases the risk of mortality, serious adverse effects, relapses after cure and impairs functional status. The World Health Organization and Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme have now recommended that nutritional assessment, counseling, and support be considered as integral parts of TB care. Nutritional assessment requires calculations of body mass index (BMI) to classify severity of undernutrition at diagnosis and ascertain nutritional recovery at follow-up. We present BMI-based field charts constructed for use by healthcare workers which obviate calculations of BMI and provide weights corresponding to BMI categories, and body weight corresponding to a desirable BMI of 21 kg/m2. These simplified BMI-based field charts will enable appropriate assessment, counseling, and monitoring of undernourished patients with active TB by peripheral health workers in programmatic settings

Essential Medicines Falling Through the Gaps of Under-Graduate Medical Curriculum

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