Hi doctor, my kid current age is 17 months .so far for my kid we have taken vaccines at government health centres and also additional vaccines which are not available at government health centres those we have taken at private hospitals. In private hospital at 18th months age they are giving vaccines — dpt 1st booster, hib 1st booster, ipv 1st booster. Seems they will give these vaccines as combination of one injection i.e hexavalent vaccine. Is this correct? If not please let us know the vaccine name. But when we enquired in government health centres, they told for above 1 year kids they will not give penta (dpt+hepatitis-b+hib) vaccine. There they will give only dpt-1 booster not giving hib booster. As we are affordable to take additional required vaccines, so at 18 months, for my kid do we need to take dpt booster alone at government centre or can we go to private hospital to take all dpt, hib,ipv boosters? Please clarify on this.

Dr. Shivam SondhiPediatrician4yrs exp

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Good afternoon! sir, I can understand your confusion, actually 2 major schedules that may be followed at large scale here in india are nis schedule (national immunization schedule), and iap schedule (indian academy of pediatrics). Also some institutions may have their own vaccination schedule too. The government actually follows the nis schedule, that you are talking about the government vaccines, and giving only dpt booster at 18 months, comes under nis schedule. Under this the government aims to provide universal vaccine coverage to all the major vaccine preventable diseases in india, so that the individual develop immunity against those diseases. That being said, other than the diseases covered under the nis, there are vaccines available for other diseases (which are available commercially, but are not covered under the nis). Many institutions follow iap schedule too. So if you are affording, you can get the scheduled vaccine from the private hospital. But my advice to you is that, follow the schedule from one centre, either government or private hospital schedule, do not change the place or schedule of vaccination, until unless it is urgent (like job transfer). Thank you.  

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