Vaccines and Vaccine Policy for Universal Health Care

In: Social change, Band 43, Heft 2, S. 263-291

Abstract

The existing national policy framework vis-à-vis vaccines reflects an aggressive push towards introduction of new vaccines in the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) without providing an uncompromising scientific basis or committing itself to proven epidemiological needs of the population. The idea of selective immunisation is being undermined by slogans like 'prevention is better than cure' that are being trumped up to impart credibility to the effort, given shape by the projected panacea for all ills, that is, Public–Private Partnership (PPP), to push the line that all immunisation is universal. This article examines the aims and motives behind deliberate destruction of the public sector in favour of PPPs and establishes the need for a vaccine policy that is designed to enhance national public capacity for public immunisation programmes as opposed to the present policy that justifies spending public money on privately produced vaccines in the name of protection from diseases whose incidence figures and public health statistics are dubious and industry-manufactured.