Pentavalent and other New Combination Vaccines: Solutions in Search of Problems

The pentavalent vaccine and many other combination vaccines waiting to enter Universal immunization Programme (UIP) have brought into sharp focus the gaping gap between lofty slogans of ‘evidence based medicine’ and the actual dynamics that drive policy on the ground1-4. Notwithstanding the theatrics of the ‘experts’ of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) globally and National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) here in India, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the pentavalent vaccine, like many other recent combination vaccines, is a solution searching for problems.