EMN
Dimapur, December 22
Nagaland is among states in the country with low immunizations rates in both the urban and rural areas. The state also trails behind almost all the north-eastern region states, details from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show.
The full immunization rate in India is 58.5% for rural and 67.4% for urban (as per Coverage Evaluation Survey (CES) 2009), the Minister for Health & Family Welfare, J P Nadda, stated this in the Rajya Sabha in Delhi on Tuesday, December 22.
Mission Indradhanush was launched by Union Health Minister J.P Nadda on December 25, 2014. It aims to immunize all children against seven vaccine preventable diseases namely diphtheria, whooping cough (Pertussis), tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B by 2020.
The immunization rate for children in India is 58.9% for SC category and 49.8% for ST category (as per CES, 2009 data).
The minister told the Rajya Sabha that the lack of full immunization is not a reason for the high number of cases of malnutrition.
The government has launched the immunization program “Mission Indradhanush” on December 25, 2014, with an aim to cover all children who are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated. The mission focuses on interventions to rapidly increase full immunization coverage of children by approximately 5% annually and to expand full immunization coverage from 65% in 2014 to at least 90% children in the next five years.
The first phase of Mission Indradhanush 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.J P Nadda said that the central government launched the second phase of Mission Indradhanush in selected 352 districts in the country. Out of the number, 279 are medium-focus districts while the remaining 73 are high-focus districts for the phase-I movement, he said.
During the second phase of the immunization program, he said, four special drives of weeklong duration are being conducted starting from October 2015.
During phase-II, as on 13th December 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, he said in the reply.
6 districts of state are high-focus under immunization program
Also, Nagaland has six districts listed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as high-focus districts where said mission would be implemented with more concentration.
Likewise, the central government has listed five districts in Nagaland as medium-focus districts.
In addition, there are six districts from Nagaland that were included in the first phase but also included in phase-two of the program. The districts are Dimapur, Kiphire, Kohima, Mon, Tuensang, and Wokha.
The central government has undertaken various campaigns in past one year for making the country diseases free, the minister said.
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 immunization coverage of children by approximately 5% annually and to expand full immunization coverage from 65% in 2014 to at least 90% 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.
Minister for Health & Family Welfare J P Nadda said that no separate funds were earmarked for Mission Indradhanush and the existing National Health Mission (NHM) funds were used for the mission.
The minister also gave updates about other campaigns that were launched were the National Deworming Day and IDCF (Intensified Diarrhea Control Fortnight).
The National Deworming Day was launched on February 9 this year. The ‘mop up activity’ for the event was undertaken on February 14 in 11 states / union territories in the first phase. The major highlights of National Deworming Day are:
• National Deworming Day was implemented in 277 districts out of 303 districts across 11 States/UT excluding the Lymphatic Filariasis endemic districts.
• Against a target of 10.31 crore children between ages of 1 – 19 years (with some of States not covering the total range of age groups), a total of 8.98 crore children received deworming tablet (Albendazole) during the National Deworming Day.
• National coverage achievement for deworming intervention was 85 percent. The percent coverage ranged from a maximum of 95 percent in Dadra Nagar Haveli & Maharashtra to lowest in Assam (58 %). Except the States of Assam & Tripura, rest all States/UT reported a coverage of more than 80 percent.
• National Deworming Day was implemented across 4.70 lakh schools and 3.67 lakh Anganwadi centers
The details about funding to the states in the northeast region for the Deworming campaign are given in chart-2.
Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight (IDCF)
Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight (IDCF) comprises a set of activities implemented in an intensified manner from 28th July to 8th August 2014 to prevent deaths due to childhood diarrhoea across all districts of all states and union territories.
These activities mainly include- intensification of advocacy activities, awareness generation activities, diarrhoea management service provision, establishing ORS-Zinc Corners, ORS distribution by ASHA, detection of undernourished children and their treatment, and promotion of Infant and Young Child Feeding activities.
IDCF was launched across all states and the union territories on 28th July by the highest leadership in a state. It invited large media coverage and massive awareness generation on Diarrhoea control related activities.
Minister for Health & Family Welfare J P Nadda has requested all the states and union territories to ‘seek active participation of the public’ for the campaigns.
