Rumours and controversies around vaccine safety have shed light on the strong presence of parental vaccine hesitancy (VH) in India.

A literature review identifies challenges to overcome VH as well as opportunities to improve vaccine confidence.

Vaccine-specific causes (e.g., cost, safety concerns), individual (e.g., doubts about need to vaccinate, lack of confidence in vaccination programmes) and contextual (e.g., religion, traditions) influences are involved in parental VH.

Healthcare workers and other health actors have a crucial role in improving confidence towards childhood vaccination by communicating accurate information about risks and benefits of vaccines to parents.

Educating, creating awareness and tailoring immunisation programmes for each vaccine are proposed avenues to improve parental confidence in vaccination.