Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal on Sunday said under Swarna Jayanti Yojana, the State Government has decided to launch Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) in December 2017.
He said PCV costs about Rs 4,000 per dose, which comes around Rs 10,000 to 12,000 for a child. With the launch of PCV vaccine, people of Haryana would save about Rs 500 crore.
The Chief Minister, who was speaking in Gurugram after launching the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (MI) round in four districts including Faridabad, Palwal, Mewat and Gurugram said that children are the supreme assets of our country and their health is important for the growth of the state and our nation.
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij also launched the Intensified Mission Indradhanush in Vadnagar, Gujarat and Ambala Cantonment, respectively.
Intensified Mission Indradhanush is Flagship initiative of the Government of India to increase immunisation coverage by vaccinating all unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children (up to 2 years) and pregnant women as per Routine Immunization schedule.
Earlier, the state has completed four phases under Mission Indradhanush (MI). The achievement of Mission Indradhanush Phase-4 (April-August 2017) was also discussed under which total 5,463 sessions were held in which 51,578 children and 20,479 pregnant women were vaccinated and 11,434 children have been fully immunised.
During phase I, II, III and IV, total 1,32,156 sessions were held in which 9,65,424 children and 2,63,549 pregnant women were vaccinated and 2,17,273 children have been fully immunized from vaccine preventable diseases such as Tuberculosis, Polio, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Tetanus, Hemophillus Influenza B Pneumonia and Meningitis, Hepatitis B, Measles and Rotavirus Diarrhoea.
Haryana is catering to around six lakh newborns, with over two lakh immunization sessions planned per year. There have been a lot of initiatives taken to improve the coverage and quality of services in the universal immunization programme. Full Immunization Coverage of Haryana is 62.2 per cent as per NFHS-4 survey, which range from 97 per cent in Ambala to 13 per cent in Mewat, said Manohar lal.
The Chief Minister said that the impact of MI across the districts over the four phases, in improving the immunization coverage has been acknowledged at the highest level.
The Prime Minister through PRAGATI platform emphasized the need of a supplemental aggressive action plan to cover all left out and drop out in selected districts in urban cities with low Routine Immunization (RI) coverage in a specific time frame. Now, the Government of India has launched nationwide intensified routine immunization drive to close the immunization gap, he said.
The intensified Mission Indradhanush drive would be closely monitored at the district, state and central level at regular intervals. It would be viewed by the Cabinet Secretary at the National level and would continue to be monitored at the highest level under “PRAGATI”.
All other departments such as Women and Child, Panchayati Raj, Public Relations, Education, Medical Education and Research, labour, Railways, Sports and Youth Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, Defence and Home Affairs and Urban Development have also been included for their support for the Intensified Mission Indradhanush activity.
The Chief Minister said that wider publicity was the key strategy to generate awareness among public and for raising demand of immunisation services under Intensified Mission Indradhanush.
The Mission would help communities, parents and key stakeholders to understand the importance of routine immunization in protecting children from life-threatening diseases, increase their confidence in vaccines, address their misconceptions and fears, and motivate them to seek immunization services. It would help reaching the unreached with key routine immunization messages and collaborative implementation of communication aimed at achieving 90 per cent full immunisation coverage, he added.