Expanded Program on Immunization

The Expanded Program on Immunization is a World Health Organization program with the goal to make vaccines available to all children.

The World Health Organization (WHO) initiated the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) in May 1974 with the objective to vaccinate children throughout the world.

Ten years later, in 1984, the WHO established a standardized vaccination schedule for the original EPI vaccines: Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP), oral polio, and measles. Increased knowledge of the immunologic factors of disease led to new vaccines being developed and added to the EPI’s list of recommended vaccines: Hepatitis B (HepB), yellow fever in countries endemic for the disease, and Haemophilus influenzae meningitis (Hib) conjugate vaccine in countries with high burden of disease.

In 1999, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) was created with the sole purpose of improving child health in the poorest countries by extending the reach of the EPI. The GAVI brought together a grand coalition, including the UN agencies and institutions (WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank), public health institutes, donor and implementing countries, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, the vaccine industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and many more. The creation of the GAVI has helped to renew interest and maintain the importance of immunizations in battling the world’s large burden of infectious diseases.

The current goals of the EPI are

In addition, the GAVI has set up specific milestones to achieve the EPI goals: that by 2010 all countries have routine immunization coverage of 90% of their child population, that HepB be introduced in 80% of all countries by 2007, and that 50% of the poorest countries have Hib vaccine by 2005.

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