National Immunisation Mission: How indigenous vaccines can go a long way

The locally developed Ceravac can play a critical role in the efficacy of the National Immunisation Mission

The first doses of smallpox vaccine lymph arrived in India in May 1802. A three-year-old child from Bombay (now Mumbai) – Anna Dusthall became the first person in India to receive the smallpox vaccine on May 14, 1802.

Till 1850 India was using vaccines imported from Britain until Dr Waldemar Haffkine developed cholera and plague vaccines through clinical trials in India in the late 19th century.

India’s National Immunisation Mission has come a long way since then. But it still needs a sustained supply of indigenously developed vaccines to run the world’s largest universal immunisation programme.

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