The third phase of the vaccination drive ‘Mission Indradhanush being implemented by State Health and Family Welfare Department has started in eleven districts of the State.
In this phase, vaccination drive will be conducted in Balrampur-Ramanujganj, Durg, Gariaband, Janjgir-Champa, Kabeerdham, Koriya, Mungeli, Raigarh, Rajnandgaon, Sukma and Surajpur districts on January 7, January 20-23, January 25, January 27-18, 2016 respectively for seven days. Meanwhile, children of age-group 0-2 years, who have skipped the vaccination, will be vaccinated.
Health Department officials informed that under this mission, children of given age group will be vaccinated for prevention of tuberculosis, Diphtheria, DPT, hepatitis-B, and measles. Children will also be given polio vaccination and pentavalent vaccination during the drive. Mother-Infant Protection Card will be issued to the beneficiaries, after vaccination.
Officials also informed that Vaccination Officers and Field teams have been given instructions to pace up the vaccination drive. Officials informed that based on the experience of earlier phases, preparations for this phase has been done beforehand.
Officials informed that the department has initiated 24x7 Dial-104 toll-free service, on which people can avail free health advice.
Chhattisgarh has achieved 75.6 per cent immunisation rate in the urban areas and 52.7 per cent in the rural areas of the State.
The full immunisation rate in India is 58.5 per cent for rural and 67.4 per cent for urban (as per Coverage Evaluation Survey (CES) 2009), officials stated.
Union Health Minister JP Nadda in September this year had congratulated Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and State Health Minister Ajay Chandrakar for the achievement on successfully implementing Mission Indradhanush, officials stated.
Significantly, ‘Mission Indradhanush’, a special campaign of the Centre was carried out in four phases among the districts dealing with the issue of low vaccination status. At the state level, the drive was inaugurated by Chief Minister Raman Singh.
Notably, around 75 lakh children and 21 lakh pregnant women have been vaccinated under the campaign across the nation, officials claimed.
The complete vaccination of 20 lakh children was done in the identified districts.
Nadda applauded the efforts of health officers and ground workers of the State for the success, officials stated.
Out of the identified districts, eight districts of Chhattisgarh were included.
Nadda said that the State government has shown strong willpower towards success of the programme. As per the data received by ASHA and ANMs, a micro-planning was done by the State Government, officials stated.
The letter from the Union Ministry of Health has reported that an average of State’s 77 percent has been included in the list of beneficiaries under ‘Mission Indradhanush’ in which 64 per cent beneficiaries are from Raipur and 68 per cent are from Surguja.
The immunization rate for children in India is 58.9 per cent for SC category and 49.8 per cent for ST category (as per CES, 2009 data).
The lack of full immunisation is not a reason for the high number of cases of malnutrition.
The Government has launched “Mission Indradhanush” on 25th December, 2014 with an aim to cover all children who are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated. The Mission focuses on interventions to rapidly increase full immunisation coverage of children by approximately 5 per cent annually and to expand full immunisation coverage from 65 per cent in 2014 to at least 90 per cent children in the next five years.
Mission Indradhanush Phase I was started as a weeklong special intensified immunization drive from 7th April 2015 in 201 high focus districts for four consecutive months. During this phase, more than 75 lakh children were vaccinated of which 20 lakh children were fully vaccinated and more than 20 lakh pregnant women received tetanus toxoid vaccine. The Government has launched Phase II of Mission Indradhanush in selected 352 districts in the country of which 279 are medium focus districts and remaining 73 are high focus districts of Phase-I.
During Phase II of Mission Indradhanush, four special drives of weeklong duration are being conducted starting from October 2015. During phase II, as on December 13, 2015 more than 37 lakh children were vaccinated, of which more than 10 lakh children were fully vaccinated and more than 9 lakh pregnant women received tetanus toxoid vaccine.