Strategy for childhood immunization in India - 1. Prioritization of vaccines

A simple scoring system is presented to evaluate the necessity, efficacy and safety of vaccines so that priority may be assigned to them for routine use in children. Eleven common vaccines are listed according to priority and the high priority items are those against measles, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. Therefore measles, polio and DPT vaccines are recomended as the core group of vaccines for routine use in children in India. The continued use of smallpox vaccine seems unwarranted. The low priority vaccines namely BCG, typhoid and cholera may be used in special groups, endemic areas or epidemics. Rubella and mumps vaccines are also of low priority and need not be introduced at present.