Health

KEY POINTS

GVAP-2020

·         Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) is a framework adopted at the World Health Assembly in 2012 to achieve the vision of the Decade of Vaccines (DoV) (2011–2020) by delivering universal access to immunization.

·         GVAP has articulated five goals and six strategic objectives to achieve this mission.

Goals of GVAP

·         Achieve a world free of poliomyelitis

·         Meet global and regional elimination targets

·         Meet vaccination coverage targets in every region, country and community

·         Develop and introduce new and improved vaccines and technologies

·         Reducing child mortality

India’s progress

·         India introduced Mission Indradhanush in 2014, to improve the immunisation rate.

·         Government identified high-focus districts that have the highest number of partially-immunised and unimmunised children and channelled resources to address the gap.

·         India launched its vaccination campaign against measles, a major childhood disease, and congenital rubella, which is responsible for irreversible birth defects.

Steps to achieve GVAP

·         Sustainable resources and timely execution of well-crafted strategies are required to achieve immunisation targets.

·         Stakeholder cooperation will be paramount in making India fully immunised.

·         Building awareness about the value of vaccines is crucial step towards delivering Health for all.

·         Community-based information provided by trusted sources can help address issues confronting vaccine hesitancy at large.

·         In order to achieve 100 per cent immunisation rate in the country, optimal usage of technologies for vaccine delivery is required.

·         Use of eVIN technology (electronic vaccine intelligence network) that digitises vaccine stocks through smartphone apps must be encouraged.

·         Reducing wastage and enhancing vaccine to stimulate the best immune response particularly in small children are needed.

·         Immunisation programmes must have robust training, management and knowledge-sharing structures for programme implementation to be effective.