E-DRUG: Health Policy &Planning: Nationwide study India's private-sector vaccination
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Dear E-drug Colleagues
We would like to bring to your attention our paper "Role of the private
sector in vaccination service delivery in India: evidence from
private-sector vaccine sales data, 2009-12", just recently published in *Health
Policy and Planning*. The study was led by colleagues at the Boston
University School of Public Health (Abhishek Sharma, Warren Kaplan) in
collaboration with the Public Health Foundation of India (Maulik Chokshi,
Sanjay Zodpey).
Using IMS Health data on Indian private-sector vaccine sales, 2011 Indian
Census data and national household surveys (DHS/NFHS 2005 - 06 and UNICEF CES
2009), this is the first state-by-state analysis of the role of the private
sector in vaccinating Indian children (over 90% of India's 2009 - 12 birth
cohort of around 104 million) against each of the six primary childhood
diseases covered under India's Universal Immunization Programme. In brief,
we found:
The private sector's contribution to childhood vaccinations has been low
(ranging from 2.3% for diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus to 7.6% for oral polio
vaccines) and limited primarily to the states with higher per-capita
income. Certain low income "priority" states which contain over 50% of
India's child cohort have both low overall (both public and private
sectors) vaccination coverage and low private-sector vaccine shares.
Urban areas with good access to the private sector and the ability to
pay increases the Indian population's willingness to access private-sector
vaccination services.
The public sector clearly offers the majority of vaccination services,
yet the Government of India (GOI) must strengthen these services. In so
doing, the GOI should not ignore the private sector. The private sector
should be incentivized to improve vaccination outreach and coverage,
especially in the 'priority' states and other marginalized populations.
Download the article and supplementary appendix file from Health Policy and
Planning website:
http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/czw008?ijkey=tTWcgoTYsOW1OMj&keytype=ref
http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/czw008?ijkey=tTWcgoTYsOW1OMj&keytype=ref
Thanks and regards,
Abhishek
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Abhishek Sharma, *BPharm, MPH*
Department of Global Health
Center for Global Health and Development
Boston University School of Public Health
Boston, MA, USA
Email: abhi0991@bu.edu
abhishek sharma <abhisheksharma0991@gmail.com>