We are living in
21st century, the age of supercomputers. Or you may call it - the age of big data. So, for some of us, diseases
related with poor water / food supply and sanitation may sound as a story of
medieval period. You may also say, "I read only in a book !!" However, it is a fact that millions of people are still living
with abject poverty and millions of children have to lose their life before
fifth birthday. Even if we go through
pages of our history, we have faced global pandemics that created havoc across
Europe to Asia. Millions of people lost their invaluable life to cholera, flu
pandemics, smallpox, tuberculosis, and thousands of children got handicapped
& live crippled life due to paralytic poliomyelitis. On positive note, to be fair, we have also successfully
controlled, eliminated or even eradicated many of these infectious diseases with
the use of vaccine and public health measures since science took its foothold
in the society from early 1900s. As an example, the greatest achievement in the
human history is the eradication of small pox so far. The last case of this
disease was detected in Ethiopia in 1980s. Now, we are almost nearing
poliomyelitis eradication from the globe. In the backdrop of this success
story, however, people in developing countries are still fighting death and illnesses
caused by waterborne, airborne and vector borne diseases (in whatever capacity
they can!!) through local and modern remedies available. But, the only challenge, this is further compounded by
increasing population density, deforestation, climate changes, increasing numbers
of multi – drug resistance bacteria, urbanization and poverty. It is reported that millions of children
still miss regular vaccination either zero dose or incomplete dose. The reasons are simply related with a big gap in access
and utilization of vaccines that are available through government health care
delivery services. This means that all these missed children are "at increased
risk" of vaccine preventable diseases and thus, outbreaks in the community.
These unfortunate missed children are usually from poor family, especially
tribal community or millions of so called "untouchables", who are pushed to the corner of social ladder always "under – privileged" and illiteracy rampant. So,
we have a mission to reach these "High Risk" populations and provide them access to safe, effective and affordable vaccine
against diseases of impoverished using science as its means. Our ultimate goal therefore should be to transcend vaccine science research from laboratory to the reach
of community in high risk areas of developing countries.
Anuj Bhattachan
9th July, 2014
