Eighty-four per cent of children and pregnant women were covered under full package immunisation programme, the Integrated Child Health & Immunization Survey (INCHIS), in Odisha in 2016.
It was revealed at review meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary AP Padhi at the State Secretariat recently. Health and Family Welfare Secretary Pramod Kumar Meherda outlined the issues and National Health Mission Director Salini Pandit presented the updates for discussion.
Full package immunization coverage was found more than 84 per cent in 29 districts, excepting Odisha. Padhi directed the department to ensure 100 per cent immunization coverage of all children and pregnant women on head count basis in the districts where IMR and MMR rates are high.
As per the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS4) of 2015-16 full immunization coverage in Odisha was around 79 per cent against the national average of 62 per cent. But it scaled up to around 84 per cent in the Integrated Child Health and Immunization Survey (INCHIS) of 2016.
It was decided to deepen the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) activities in Ganjam and in the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, immunization coverage is very low. Padhi directed to expedite Head Count Survey in all blocks of Ganjam and the BMC for identification of the children and pregnant women, who have not been covered under the full immunisation.
After Kerala, Odisha is the only State where only one district and one UlB have been taken up under the IMI, which is being implemented in areas where immunisation coverage of 0-2 year’ age children and pregnant mothers is less than 70 per cent.
IMI has been designed as a special national strategy to achieve more than 90 per cent of full immunisation coverage by the year 2020.
It was decided to start Missile Rubella (MR) campaign from January, 2018 in the State.