The Government of India has intensified its child immunisation drive under ‘Mission Indradhanush’ as part of the national Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), which aims to cover all children across the country against vaccine preventable diseases which include diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles, rubella and Hepatitis B. In India, immunisation has become a very critical element in the government’s child survival strategy as a large number of children across the country rely solely on the national public healthcare system to access vaccines that protect them against deadly childhood diseases. Mission Indradhanush, is said to be one of the largest programmes of its kind in the world. 

As new global health paradigms focusing on universal health coverage and sustainable developments are emerging, the latest immunisation drive is expected to play a critical part in India’s quest to achieve overall health improvement of the masses. The government has recognised the urgency of infusing new life into child health efforts through the vaccination drive which is comprehensively planned to close existing immunity gaps so that disease outbreaks are curtailed and the process of immunisation in the country is accelerated by 5 per cent every year as compared to the past rate of one per cent increase in coverage annually. With only 65 per cent of children covered so far, the Mission Indradhanush configuration is expected to help achieve 90 per cent full immunisation coverage by 2020.

The Mission Indradhanush is a systematically planned immunisation drive that is expected to cover all those children who have been previously left out. It is being carried out in phases since 2015, beginning with 201 high focus districts where nearly 50 per cent of all unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children reside. Out of the total 201 districts, 82 were concentrated in four states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which constitute nearly 25 per cent of the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children across the country.

Under this drive, several special vaccination campaigns are being conducted, and are monitored through sturdy and stringent structures. Nearly 297 districts have already been targeted during the 2015-2016, in two phases. The mission aims to cater to 89 lakh children in the country who have not yet received all the vaccinations available under UIP. The government is of the opinion that the focused micro-planning, provision of additional financial resources and systematic immunisation drives will make the critical difference.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, for overall developmental efforts the government is guided by the understanding that the country’s greatest economic and social resource, its demographic dividend, needs to be safeguarded. Delivering vaccines to the children safely, adequately and effectively, especially to the underserved and marginalised, is a top priority agenda for the government. In the past, catch-up campaigns for polio, measles and Japanese Encephalitis have amply demonstrated the capacity of the nation’s well-developed immunisation system to deliver vaccines to millions of children, safely and effectively.

The present vaccination drive is drawn from the learning of the polio programme, with unprecedented mobilisation of human resources as health workers and agencies / organisations being leveraged for full coverage. High-risk areas such as slums, brick kilns, construction sites and migrant settlements that hold underserved segments of the population, are targeted. 

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said, partner agencies such as World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and Rotary International are supporting the initiative with system strengthening, specifically through technical facilitation and monitoring activities. People’s political representatives including MPs and MLAs besides various institutions like Zilla Parishads, Gram Panchayats, Schools and NGOs are advised to actively engage themselves in influencing the Masses through advocacy and awareness generation on this important vaccination drive across the country. 

Since it has been found that in 63 per cent of cases, people are ignorant about the benefits of immunisation, a comprehensive multi-pronged communication programme has been adopted for achieving the objective of the vaccination drive. The programme directs specific communication and multi-media activities at different levels of operation, which include efforts that span engagement with target audience via TV, radio, newspaper and SMS, supplementing traditional advocacy and Information Education and Communication / Behavior Change Communication (IEC/BCC) components. This multimedia is categorised as one of the most cost-effective interventions in the history of public health campaigns in India, aims to widely disseminate information that vaccines do not merely save lives but they allow children and their families to thrive by preventing the onslaught of illnesses, disability, hospitalisation costs and needless human suffering.

Health experts say that vaccines indeed have long term benefits for individuals and society by contributing to improvement in cognitive development, education attainment, labour productivity and economic development.

(The writer is a freelance journalist)