Delayed Vaccination in Infants in an Urban Health Center in Delhi, India: Evidence from a Retrospective Audit of Secondary Data

• Main Authors: Saurav Basu, Aditi Sajwan, Nidhi Bhatnagar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2020-01-01
• Series: MAMC Journal of Medical Sciences
• Subjects: delayed vaccination; immunization; india
• Online Access: http://www.mamcjms.in/article.asp?issn=2394-7438;year=2020;volume=6;issue=2;spage=97;epage=99;aulast=Basu

Background: Delayed vaccination in infants significantly increases the susceptibility window for vaccine preventable diseases. Objective: We conducted a retrospective audit of secondary data to determine the rates of delayed vaccination among infants reporting for routine immunization at an urban primary healthcare clinic in Delhi, India. Methods: Data were extracted from the manual register of the health clinic and entered in MS-Excel 2013. Results: We analyzed a total of 811 vaccination encounters in infants. Delayed vaccination was observed in 144 (17.8%) vaccination encounters. The proportion of delayed vaccination encounters progressively increased from penta-1 (lowest) to penta-3 (highest). However, the proportion of overall delayed vaccination encounters did not differ significantly across gender (P = 0.71). Conclusions: Delayed vaccination among infants continues to exist as a significant but largely avoidable public health challenge in certain health settings in India.