Vaccines are essential to ensure that the population is immune to certain diseases, and immunization is one of the most cost-effective interventions to prevent the occurrence of the diseases. Recently, new vaccines such as rotavirus, measles-rubella vaccine, and pneumococcal vaccines are introduced in the universal immunization program of some of the states in India. Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is also introduced in Punjab through its own initiative. This paper documents the experience in terms of implementation plans, issues, and challenges in introducing these vaccines in North Indian states, including Haryana (rotavirus vaccine), Punjab (HPV vaccine), Himachal Pradesh (pneumococcal vaccine), and Chandigarh (measles and rubella vaccination campaign).

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An unequivocal relationship exists between tuberculosis (TB) and tobacco use. India has made the sustained efforts to reduce the dual burden of morbidity and mortality due to these two epidemics individually. It is now being felt to integrate two national programs which are tackling these diseases for their increased efficiency. Several opportunities exist for integration which includes joint policy development and planning, integrated trainings, joint supervision and monitoring, delivering tobacco cessation services among TB patients along with partnerships, and multisectoral approaches at national and subnational levels. The opportunities are limited by challenges such as lack of leadership and political commitment, limited resources, poor intersectoral coordination, dearth of community awareness, and limited capacity of TB program staff in tobacco cessation services. It is concluded that convergence of two national programs may lead to synergistic effect in decreasing the burden of both the public health problems. This kind of successful initiative of integrating tobacco control activities with TB, the control program may subsequently pave the way toward integration of tobacco control in other national programs and primary health-care services.

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Promoting research is one of the key objectives of the Global Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs). The rising epidemic of NCDs mandates evidence-based interventions backed by good quality research. Operational Research (OR) has an important role to play in identifying, testing, and assessing the effectiveness and coverage of various NCD interventions in routine programmatic settings. Setting the OR priorities as per the local epidemiology of the NCDs and their risk factors is the first step. Direct program relevance of the research questions, the involvement of program managers in research, the use of routinely collected data using simple methodology, and effective dissemination of findings are needed for the OR to have any impact on policy and practice, thereby strengthening the program. This paper focuses on the role of OR in NCDs, presents few case studies demonstrating the impact of OR on policy and/or practice, and also discusses the prerequisites and enabling factors for conducting OR and ensuring translation of OR findings into policy and/or practice. This narrative review article is the output of a preconference scientific session titled “Operational research to strengthen NCD prevention and control program” at the World NCD Congress 2017 in Chandigarh, India.

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Malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are the three major public health problems globally and especially affecting many in low-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asian region. For many years, these three most devastating diseases have received most of the world's attention. The effective public health interventions in managing and controlling these diseases are able to reduce the burden to some extent but are not able to effectively prevent the occurrence of these diseases. Hence, lot of research is simultaneously going on in developing safe and effective vaccines against these diseases. Despite the continuous efforts to produce the effective vaccines against these diseases, there has not been much success, except recently for malaria, where anti-sporozoite subunit vaccine, RTS, S/AS01, has completed Phase III vaccine trials and got the positive regulatory assessment from the WHO. This review updates on the newer vaccines in the development phase for malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS.

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