Immunization Technical Support Unit
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
Strengthening Universal Immunization Programme
© JSIThe Immunization Technical Support Unit (ITSU) was created by the Government of India to rapidly augment the capacity of the Immunization Division of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), in response to the recommendation of the Mavalankar Committee Report, with a clear consensus on the gradual uptake of ITSU’s critical interventions by MoHFW, to ensure the sustainability of its technical unit.
ITSU was set up in 2012 as an alliance involving the MoHFW, Gates Foundation (previously known as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), to serve as a strategic think-tank, providing techno-managerial support for scaling up the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) in the country. In June 2017, ITSU was transitioned from PHFI to John Snow India Pvt Ltd.
© JSIKey Objectives
© JSI- To provide techno-managerial support to the Immunization Division of MoHFW for scaling up the national UIP; bolstering national and sub-national capacities
- Health systems strengthening through aggressive reviews and monitoring
- Strengthening data use and action
- Building evidence to support policy
- Creating enabling social and behaviour change communication strategies for demand generation for Routine Immunization (RI) and addressing vaccine hesitancy
- Working closely with immunization partners, including UNICEF, WHO, Gavi, UNDP, and others, across various areas of RI
Since its inception, ITSU’s support and programmatic interventions have been strategically aligned towards improving the national RI coverage, placing equity and quality at the centre of all its interventions, strengthening health systems, demand generation, and generating evidence to guide policy decisions, which have deeply contributed to achieving significant gains under the Universal Immunization Programme.
India has shown tremendous improvement in Immunization Coverage, and all efforts are being made to vaccinate every child with vaccines available under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) of India. Efforts are underway in full steam in the entire country to eliminate Measles and Rubella. ITSU is providing all techno-managerial support to achieve this milestone and scale up efforts to reach the last mile, ensuring that every child receives full immunization coverage against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases under UIP.