Routine immunization in India: A perspective and critical review

This article is to understand the current status of Routine Immunization (RI) in India, the challenges and way forward with a perspective of enabling the medical institutions and civil society organizations to engage in the program objectively. Routine Immunization (RI) program in India caters to a birth cohort of 27 million infants and 30 million pregnant women. Thus the India’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) is one of the largest in the world in terms of quantities of vaccine used, number of beneficiaries, number of immunization sessions organized and the geographical spread and diversity of areas covered.