Injectable polio vaccine from November | Fusion - WeRIndia

As part of the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), India will be introducing injectable polio vaccine (IPV) from November. It will be launched in a phased manner. From April, 2016, the bivalent variety of polio vaccine will replace the trivalent polio vaccine that is currently being administered.

This will help in reducing the incidence of vaccine-derived polio virus. January of last year, India has managed to successfully eliminated the wild polio virus infection.

Since this is a phased introduction, the first phase of IPV will be introduced to 17 states and four Union Territories which are at high risk. They are: Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

As per the UIP, the government has approved three vaccines to be included with IPV being one of them. The approval was done a year ago based on the recommendation given by the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization. The other two vaccines, measles-rubella and rotavirus. They are still not ready yet. The current oral polio vaccine consists of three strains of polio virus P1, P2, and P3. Since P2 was eradicated in 1999, the bivalent vaccine will be introduced.

Image Credit: Smartshiva1988 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Injectable_Polio_Vaccine.jpg