Technical Assistance to improve Urban Routine Immunization in Uttar Pradesh & Bihar

John Snow India, through this project, is providing the technical assistance for strengthening urban immunization in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India to contribute to the national efforts of achieving 90% full immunization coverage (FIC). The overall goal is to increase equitable immunization access and coverage by strengthening the already existing urban health system and not create any new parallel structure.

India’s universal immunization program (UIP) is perhaps one of the largest public health programs across the world, with an annual cohort of approximately 26 million infants and 29 million pregnant women reached through 12 million sessions per year. The programme has achieved tremendous success and immunization has helped reduce the annual mortality of children under-five in the country. However, within the overall scope of the program, maintaining urban immunization coverage and equity is more challenging. This is primarily, because urban immunization has remained a traditional weak area, with substantial variation is observed in immunization coverage patterns in urban and peri-urban settings.

The project is working to co-design new approaches to reach pockets of missed, resistant, or under-served communities, and establishing/streamlining review mechanisms and data management systems for local decision making. The project will also invest in integrating and leveraging routine immunization (RI) for urban primary health care systems.

Past learnings of JSI’s global and local interventions on urban immunization from projects such as ITSU, Building Health Cities, Rapid Immunization Skill Enhancement (RISE), Rotavirus Vaccine Introduction, Mother and Child Health Integrated Programme (MCHIP), etc will also be leveraged. The unique features of the project include urban health integration, gender integration, convergence of immunization system, and sustainability and transition.