Geneva-based Gavi, the global vaccine alliance funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors, has pledged $500 million over the next 5 years to support India's country-wide immunization program.
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| C.K. Mishra |
The country's additional secretary of health, C.K. Mishra, said Gavi's board approved the country's vaccine program proposal and that the country would focus on vaccines for rotavirus, measles-rubella, PCV and HPV.
The country said it planned to spend about $65 million this year on immunizations, but will raise that amount to $281 million in 2016. The government also said it planned to spent about $117 million annually to cover the cost of its pentavalent vaccine program that is given to children up to age 5 and includes vaccines for meningitis, pneumonia and otitis as well as whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis B and diphtheria.
The pentavalent program was originally funded by a grant from Gavi, but the government said it will take it over starting in 2016.
- here's the report from the Economic Times