The second phase of the Mission Indradhanush, the immunisation programme of the Health Ministry to identify and vaccinate children against seven diseases by 2020, will take off from October 7 in 352 districts in the country.
Children, who are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B will be covered.
launching the second phase of the ‘Mission Indradhanush’, Union Health Minister J P Nadda interacted with health ministers and department secretaries of states through video-conferencing to enquire about their preparedness, and said his Ministry aims to achieve full immunisation of more than 90 per cent children by 2020.
‘Mission Indradhanush’ aims at fully immunising more than 89 lakh children who are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and those who have not been covered during routine immunisation for various reasons.
In the second phase, 352 districts have been selected including 279 mid-priority districts, 33 from North-East states and 40 districts from the phase one, where large number of missed-out children were detected.
“The second phase will commence from October 7 for a week. This will be followed by week-long intensified immunisation drives for three consecutive months starting from November 7 and December 7, 2015 and January 7, 2016. The Health Ministry will seek to reach an estimated 45 lakh children who have never received vaccines or remain partially- immunised in the second phase,” additional secretary CK Mishra from Health Ministry told reporters here.
“The campaign will revisit the 40 districts because they did not meet even 50 per cent of their target population during the first phase,” he added.