| SPECIAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2019 | Volume
: 37
| Issue : 2 | Page : 141-146 |
Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine rollout in India: Expectations and challenges
Rosemol Varghese1, Balaji Veeraraghavan1, Yuvraj Jeyaraman2, Girish Kumar2, Narendra Kumar Arora3, S Balasubramanian4
1 Department of Clinical Microbiology, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
2 ICMR-National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
3 Executive Director, INCLEN Trust International, New Delhi, India
4 Medical Director, Kanchi Kamakoti CHILDS Trust Hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Correspondence Address:
Dr. S Balasubramanian
Department of Paediatrics, Kanchi Kamakoti CHILDS Trust Hospital, 12-A, Nageswara Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai - 600 034, Tamil Nadu
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/ijmm.IJMM_19_320
India is one among the four Asian countries with the greatest number of deaths due to pneumococcal infection among children under 5 years. pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) has been introduced in a phased manner in five major Indian states. Ambiguity remains in choosing the appropriate type of PCV and optimum schedule with maximum effectiveness specific for each country. Here, we discuss the evidences with respect to serotype coverage, immunogenicity, reactogenicity and dosage schedule for introduction of PCV13 in India. In addition, the expected PCV impact and the challenges are detailed. PCV13 is expected to provide >75% serotype coverage for invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) serotypes in Indian children combined with the replacement by nonvaccine serotypes which is unpredictable due to lack of complete data. Nasopharyngeal (NP) surveillance is easy, feasible and can replace IPD surveillance in resource-poor settings. Continuous IPD as well as NP surveillance in all the regions are necessary to assess the impact of PCV in India.
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