VACCINATION SCHEDULE OF AN INDIAN BABY.

Kids are born with no or minimal power to protect themselves against deadly bacteria and viruses that are present in the environment. A baby develops protection power(immunity) against these organisms through infection or through immunization(vaccination).

The immunization schedule of each country is different. it depends on the prevalent disease of that country. For example, all babies are given BCG vaccine at birth for the prevention of tuberculosis in India. But, not in the US (tuberculosis is not common there).

 The immunization schedule followed in govt facilities is different from the immunization schedule recommended by the Indian academy of pediatrics.  For example, the typhoid vaccine is not there in govt schedule. However, it is recommended in the IAP schedule. These differences may be due to multiple factors like the cost of the vaccine, scalability of vaccine production, disease burden, disease mortality rate, etc.

I would suggest you follow the Indian academy of pediatrics’ suggested immunization schedule for your baby. It has included all vaccines from govt schedule. IAP schedule also has vaccines against some other diseases which also cause significant mortality or morbidity.

This is the vaccination schedule by IAP(2020-2021)

GREEN– vaccine available in both govt  and private setup

ORANGE– vaccine available only in  private setup

YELLOW– vaccine available in govt setup, but in different schedule, or available in a different form from private setup (MMR to MR)

Note*- Polio vaccine is in injectable form in the IAP schedule(except birth dose), it is  primarily oral in govt schedule (both are good)

What can you do?

1. Take all vaccines privately(cost high)
2. Take green colored ones from govt, the yellow and orange colored privately
3. Take green and yellow from govt, only orange from private.
4. Only green and yellow from govt(Misses few important diseases covered by orange colored ones)

I would suggest you go with either 1 or 2.

For a price list of vaccines see my post Cost of different vaccines in India(December 2021)