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Pakistan's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) performance has a significant impact on global and regional immunization indicators such as poliomyelitis eradication, maternal and neonatal tetanus and measles elimination. Despite significant efforts by the Government and partners, Pakistan's immunization indicators have not met the expected benchmarks. Barriers to achieving immunization goals are related to limited access to immunization services, lack of parent awareness and weak management. With sustained Government commitment, predictable partner support and by adopting effective strategies, Pakistan can achieve the immunization targets set at the regional and global level and make strong progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goal 4. This paper reviews EPI coverage targets, constraints, costs and resource allocation, and financial impact of suboptimal performance, and indicates the way forward to overcome these challenges.

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Micromachining techniques, which originated in the microelectronics industry, have been employed to manufacture microparticles bearing an engraved dot-type signature for biomolecular encoding. These metallic microstructures are photolithographically defined and manufactured in a highly reproducible manner. In addition, the code introduced on the particle face is a straightforward visible feature that is easily recognizable with the use of optical microscopy. The number of distinct codes theoretically could be many thousands, depending on the coding element numbers. Such microparticles are, thus, with appropriate surface organic functionalizations, ideal for encoding biomolecular libraries and serving as a platform for developing high-throughput multiplexed bioassay schemes based on suspension array technology. As proof of this statement, we demonstrated that encoded microparticles tagged with antibodies to human immunoglobulin classes are capable, using imaging detection as the interrogating approach, of high sensitivity and high specificity, as well as multiplexed detection of the respective antigens in a microliter-sample volume.