The Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) is
one of the most successful public health interventions
in Bangladesh, and has contributed significantly to
reducing mortality and morbidity from vaccine-
preventable diseases. The service delivery mechanism
of EPI throughout the country has been used as the
role model and a platform to deliver other interventions.
The latest report shows that the coverage of the fully
vaccinated children who had taken the doses as per
schedule before celebrating their first birth day was
81 percent in 2013. Though the rate is still much lower
than the government’s target of 90 percent by 2016,
the Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) that
oversees child immunization finds it to be “a success”.
The coverage has been consistently increasing by
one percentage point for the last six years.Bangladesh
is much appreciated for its high vaccine coverage in
routine immunization and it received two ‘GAVI best
performance award’ within the past six years.