India’s immunisation drives are likely to be adversely affected following the death of four infants, less than half-an-hour after they were administered anti-measles vaccine. The tragic incidents occurred in two separate immunisation camps in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur district. The government has suspended the measles immunisation campaign in Tamil Nadu and some other states like Orissa, which sourced their vaccine from the same manufacturer as Tamil Nadu have suspended their weekly immunisation programmes too. The deaths can be expected to have a large impact on immunisation drives across the board, whether against measles, polio or diphtheria. Immunisation is supposed to save lives and enable people to lead a healthier life. In the Tiruvallur incidents, four lives were snuffed out following immunisation. This is going to be hard to erase from public memory.

One of the biggest challenges for India’s immunisation campaigns has been overcoming public anxieties over the gains of vaccination. The anti-polio campaign has been dogged by rumours that the polio vaccine is an anti-fertility vaccine that results in impotence, while the measles immunisation programme has had to fight entrenched religious beliefs that measles is a visitation of the goddess Amman and should therefore not be prevented. Thanks to the determined efforts of public health workers, public confidence in immunisation has improved over the years and more and more parents have been bringing their children for immunisation. It is this confidence that has been dealt a blow at Tiruvallur.

The government must act quickly to restore public confidence in the immunisation programme. Preliminary investigations suggest that the freeze-dried vaccine might have been mixed with a different chemical, instead of saline water or the vaccine might have been left open for over three hours after being reconstituted, allowing the entry of foreign particles. Questions have been raised over the quality of the cold chain storage as well. It is imperative that the government carry out a transparent probe and make public its findings. The government also needs to ensure that public health centres and camps where immunisation drives are being carried out are better equipped for emergencies. Decades of hard work in motivating people for immunisation have been lost. Steps must be taken immediately to reverse the setback suffered by the immunisation campaign.