Upon having spent the past two weeks in Mysuru, I have had the opportunity of hearing from various professionals in the public health field regarding India’s diverse health system and the challenges that many citizens face.  

 

In alignment with my Pre-departure critique, my interest revolves around maternal and infant health alongside the factors that could contribute to the high mortality rates reported in previous years. Amongst the numerous lectures, fieldwork, and experiences that I have encountered throughout this trip, I decided to dedicate my second research critique to a lecture that sparked my interest and that holds principles that are key in ensuring the improvement of public health not only within India but globally as well. The lecture titled “Immunization Programs in India: From Resistance to Eradication- The Journey of HealthCare System” was given by Dr.Anil S Billmale, who is the Chief and Program Coordinator of the JSS MPH Program and an assistant professor as well.  

 

Throughout his lecture, Dr.Anil discussed the importance of immunization programs and the positive impact it has had over the years based on research statistics provided throughout his presentation. To better understand the importance of immunization programs, Dr.Anil began by discussing the history of immunizations within the Indian culture, referring to an extremely critical period in the late 1980s in which the life-threatening Polio virus was affecting the lives of many families across India.  

 

The Poliovirus is considered a human-reservoir virus that affects children in the early childhood stages of ages 1-5 or pregnant women and leads to partial or complete body paralysis. The Poliovirus has been broken down into three different variations known as WPV1, WPV2, and WPV3. Although during 1985 the first Poliovirus cases of WPV1 and WPV2 variations began to appear throughout India, the WPV3 variation contamination began taking the lives of many families in record-breaking numbers due to the obstacles in the healthcare system that India was not prepared to face as a government and a nation. Since then, public health officials made it their mission alongside the World Health Organization to eradicate Poliovirus in its entirety from the country of India. In efforts to reduce the contamination of this virus, the Indian government began to create and execute immunization programs across the country that would ensure eradication. Some of the strategies implemented included: the introduction and education of efficacious vaccines, mobile and migrant population vaccinations, newborn vaccination tracking, the Kosi operational plan, and the 107-block strategy.  By implementing these strategies for a consecutive number of years, WPV3 cases were successfully dismissed, however, that meant that WPV1 and WPV2 rose greatly. Due to the improvement of public health in India, the increase in the new variations lead to the creation of a new hybrid immunization from 2011 until 2013 that successfully eradicated PolioVirus. As of January 2019, the country of India was officially declared Polio free as it had achieved complete eradication.