UNIVERSAL CHILDHOOD IMMUNIZATION by Raymond Obomsawin

Universal Childhood Immunization (UCI) - in its more localized context referred to as Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) - stands worldwide as a top health programming priority among various multiateral, bilateral, and non-governmental (NGO) international development agencies. This appears to be the case because immunization programs are widely accepted and actively promoted as offering recipient beneficiaries more substantive disease prevention benefits than any other modality in the arsenal of modern medicine, coupled to its unique capacity to offer the surest and "quickest" results. When compared to the more basic intersectoral and developmental requisites for public health sustenance and disease prevention, UCI/EPI is generally considered to be the easiest to implement programmatically, promote publicly, and defend politically. The World Health Organization (WHO) has gone on record to affirm that, "Immunization is one of the most powerful and cost-effective weapons of modern medicine. Immunization services, however, remain tragincally under-utilized in the world today".

Publish on : May 1992