3 phase Measles-Rubella vaccination from Jan 29

BHUBANESWAR: After a massive awareness campaign on measles and rubella, two highly contagious viral diseases, the State Government on Monday decided to launch a five-week vaccination programme from January 29 to eradicate the deadly diseases.

This was decided at the State-level steering committee meeting presided over by Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi. Under the immunisation programme, children between 9 months and 15 years will be administered measles-rubella (MR) vaccine across the State in three phases, said Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Pramod Meherda.

The MR vaccination will be launched for the first time in a mission mode for which the Health Department has chalked out micro level planning and field-level staff, including Asha workers, ANMs and paramedical staff have been trained. As per preliminary estimate, around 1.24 crore children of the State will be covered, he said.

In the first phase, all government and private schools will be covered while in the second phases the immunisation drive will conducted at village level. The left-out children will be covered in  the third and final phase, Meherda added.

Meanwhile, task force meeting have been convened in all the 30 districts and district-level core committees have been constituted for timely completion of the vaccination programme. Besides, a workshop was conducted for the media on December 15 last year for generating awareness among people about the programme. Two more workshops have been planned at the field level before launch of the vaccination drive, Meherda said.

The Chief Secretary has asked the Women and Child Development, Panchayati Raj, Housing and Urban Development, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development, Steel and Mines, and Labour and Employees State Insurance departments to direct their field staff to extend active cooperation to the Health department in the immunisation drive.

Measles Rubella vaccine, manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India, has been introduced in 13 States last year. Odisha is among 12 States to undertake the campaign in January and February. The Centre has planned  to cover 41 crore children by the end of 2018.