At a two-day consultation here, health ministers and senior officials from 11 SAARC nations emphasised on the need to improve routine immunisation services and WHO officials announced the formation of a regional committee to enhance and sustain the existing services among member countries.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad highlighted challenges of the programme in the country. "You can estimate the scale of India's immunisation programme from the fact that around 26 million children are born every year....We face challenges to cover this large birth cohort."