Vaccination and Eradication: The Importance of Novel Approaches
Early this year, India launched one of the world’s largest vaccination campaigns targeted at eradicating measles and congenital rubella. Through the country’s continued efforts, almost 118 million children benefited from mass vaccination campaigns decreasing measles deaths by 51% between 2000 and 2015. Over the next two years, government officials hope to reach 410 million children through a free vaccination programme which will eventually be replaced with a routine immunisation system.
There is every reason to have an optimistic outlook regarding the possibility of this programme to eradicate measles and rubella. As a nation, India has already overcome polio, smallpox, neonatal tetanus and yaws. However, there is a tendency to oversimplify the necessary approach towards eradicating disease. There is a pressing need to consider new strategies and outlooks towards disease eradication. An excellent example of novel strategies in action is Pakistan’s approach towards eradicating polio.
Pakistan holds national polio immunisation days reaching 38 million children across the nation. High-risk mobile populations, however, are not necessarily covered by mass vaccination. In response to this, free vaccinations are provided at transit points, such as railway stations, in order to reach refugees, seasonal migrants and Internally displaced persons. This allows for fuller coverage of high-risk groups as well as ensuring the disease does not travel across the country through population movement on national transport lines.
Pakistan has also had immense success through improving disease surveillance systems and implementing aggressive response plans to reported cases. Through keeping up-to-date records of disease prevalence for each district, local branches of the eradication program are able to design specialised and effective schemes tailored to each region. They are also able to track trends or upticks in prevalence to gain a clearer understanding of the program’s effectiveness. As a result of these efforts, the number of polio cases has dropped from 300 to under five between 2104 and 2017 with complete eradication in sight for 2018.
The lesson to take away from this case study is the necessity of introducing a larger variety and scope of approaches to disease eradication. Although traditional mass vaccination provides essential coverage, new and specifically designed schemes are needed in order to make it the extra mile to full eradication. The impact of Pakistan’s evolving approach to polio exemplifies this and can be applied to efforts both now and in the near future.