Riding high on the success of “Mission Indradhanush” (MI), the Centre’s flagship scheme that aims to vaccinate all unimmunised and partially immunised children, the government on Monday said that — as
Riding high on the success of “Mission Indradhanush” (MI), the Centre’s flagship scheme that aims to vaccinate all unimmunised and partially immunised children, the government on Monday said that — as the states have been performing commendably — the mission may be able to reap the desired results much before the deadline.
To accelerate the process by planning to target 50 per cent of the estimated 70 lakh partially vaccinated or completely unvaccinated children, the government will launch the third phase of MI in the 216 high-focus districts across 27 states/Union territories. The government hopes to achieve 90 per cent coverage earlier than 2020.
“Going by the success of the mission, I would not hesitate to say that we may succeed before the set deadline,” said C.K. Mishra, additional secretary in the health ministry.
During phase I and II of MI-2015 a total of 20 lakh sessions were organised and more than 37 lakh children were fully immunised and about 37 lakh pregnant women were vaccinated with TT vaccines. “A total of 216 districts have been identified. The aim is to strengthen routine immunisation and coverage in terms of numbers and disease,” added Mr Mishra.
The states that stood out and did significantly well in both phases are Andhra Pradesh (90 per cent) and Punjab (90 per cent), followed by Gujarat (78 per cent), Karnataka, (81 per cent), Uttarakhand (80 per cent), Delhi, (78 per cent) and Bihar (72 per cent).
This time, the government added 41 new districts which needed focused attention. These districts are in Assan, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Telangana and West Bengal.
The recent intensification in their efforts in improved immunisation has led to 65 per cent of coverage so far. “The happiest day would be when we can handle and vaccinate all children at birth. The aim of this mission is to give a quantum jump to the vaccination process,” Mr Mishra further said.
According to the government data around 70 lakh children less than 2 years are those who are either partially vaccinated or completely unvaccinated. Since its inception, the MI has been coming out with has come out with flying colors. In fact in its first ever attempt, about lakhs of children were vaccinated. According to the figures compiled by the government, of the total 22 lakh children that were vaccinated then, 20 per cent had their first contact with vaccine.
The MI started with focusing on 201 high focus districts in the country which nearly had 50% of all un-vaccinated or partially vaccinated children
So far, in both phase I and phase II a total of 21.3 lakh session have been held, in which 20.2 lakh pregnant women have been fully immunized and 148.4 children have been fully immunized.
The Mission Indradhanush, depicting seven colours of the rainbow, aims to cover all such children by 2020 who are either unvaccinated, or are partially vaccinated against seven vaccine preventable diseases which include diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B.
According to the Union health minister JP Nadda even as the immunization coverage has increased between 2009-2013 from 61% to 65%, it indicates only 1% increase in coverage every year. To accelerate the process of immunization by covering 5% and more children every year, the Mission Mode has been adopted to achieve target of full coverage by 2020.
Rakesh Kumar, Joint secretary in the health ministry said that the mission to vaccinate children will eventually help bringing down infant mortality rate.
Under Mission Indradhanush, four special vaccination campaigns with intensive planning and monitoring of these campaigns.
