One of the best-recorded smallpox epidemics was reported from Goa in 1545 AD, when an estimated 8,000 children died.
Historians and physicians have sometimes referred to smallpox as the ‘Indian Plague’, which suggests that the disease might be widely prevalent in India in earlier times.
The evidence indicates that smallpox inoculation was practiced in China in around 1000 AD and in India, Turkey, and probably Africa as well.
Inoculation was widely practiced in India (and later on, even a ban by Bengal Presidency in 1804 had limited effect on the practice). A detailed description of the practice of inoculation in India was given by Dr. JZ Holwell in 1767 to the President and other members of the Royal College of Physicians in London.
The smallpox vaccine reached India in 1802 (within 4 years).
The first doses of smallpox vaccine lymph in India arrived in May 1802. Anna Dusthall, a three-year-old child from Bombay (now Mumbai) became the first person in India to receive a smallpox vaccine on June 14, 1802.
By 1850 AD, as vaccine coverage increased, the challenges such as some post-vaccination deaths, post-operative complications, and unsuccessful vaccine take raised programmatic difficulties. This was complicated by resistance from some Hindus on the pretext of vaccine coming from a cow, which is considered a sacred animal.
The Compulsory Vaccination Act was passed in India in 1892 to ensure higher coverage of smallpox and reduce the epidemic. The ‘Act’ largely remained on the papers except at the times of epidemics.
In 1893, Dr Haffkine conducted vaccine trials in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, and showed the efficacy of his vaccine in the effective control of Cholera.
In the early twentieth century, at least four vaccines (smallpox, cholera, plague, and typhoid) were available in the country.
In 1904/1905, Central Research Institute was set up in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh and then Pasteur Institute of Sothern India (as it was known then) in Coonoor in 1907.
In August 1948, the first BCG vaccinations were conducted in India.
As soon as India was declared smallpox free in 1977, the country decided to launch a National Immunization program called Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) in 1978 with the introduction of BCG, OPV, DPT, and typhoid-paratyphoid vaccines.
The Government of India joined global polio eradication efforts and the first two National Immunization Days (NIDs) for poliomyelitis eradication in India were conducted on December 9, 1995, and January 20, 1996.
In 2011, the HepB vaccine became the 7th antigen to be introduced in the UIP across the country.
In 2010, India became the last country in the world to introduce a second dose of measles vaccine in the national immunization program.
(Source: A brief history of vaccines & vaccination in India by Chandrakanth Lahariya from IJMR)