Immunisation plan set to be expanded

India’s Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) strategy that used cross-sectoral partnerships to increase full immunisation coverage among children and women in 190 underserved districts by 18.5% in four months has been showcased as one of 12 global best practices at the Partners’ Forum conference inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Wednesday.

India plans to integrate the learnings from IMI with its universal immunisation programme, which is the largest in the world with annual cohorts of 26.7 million babies and 30 million pregnant women.

“We are not only making a case for better health, we are also making an argument for faster growth. Good health of women is one of the best ways of ensuring growth... the health of the mother will determine the health of her children, and the health of children will determine our tomorrow,” Modi said.

“In India, 44,000 women were dying giving birth in 2014, when this government took office. Under Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan, we asked doctors to pledge one day of their service each month, this way 16 million ante-natal checkups have been performed. One million newborns have received care through 794 state of the art special newborn care units. These interventions have resulted in 840 lives of children saved each day,”Modi said in his inaugural address at the Partners Forum for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, which has around 1,200 participants from 85 nations.

India launched Mission Indradhanush in April 2015 to reach the estimated 38% of children not getting basic vaccines in the first year of life and covered 25.5 million children and 6.9 million pregnant women by July 2017, increasing full immunisation coverage by 6.7% (7.9% in rural areas, 3.1% in urban) over 2015. The number of vaccines was increased from seven to 12 to protect against life-threatening diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea.

The intensified mission was launched in 2017 to provide 90% full immunisation coverage to children aged 12-23 months in the districts where immunisation was 50.5% or less in 2015-16, compared to 62% average for all of India. These included 121 districts, 17 urban areas, and an additional 52 districts in the north-eastern states.

Following cycles of immunisation each month between October 2017 and January 2018, each lasting one week, full immunisation coverage went up to 69% in 190 of the lowest performing districts in India, according to a study published in a special issue of the medical journal BMJ.

“The success of Mission Indradhanush shows that partnerships with various government departments work. The way forward is to not only intensify the Mission Indradhanush programme but also our routine immunisation programme by integrating the other departments to increase coverage,” said Preeti Sudan, secretary, ministry of health and family welfare.

Financed solely by the government and using existing staff and governance systems, IMI showcased that cross-sectoral participation can be effective in vaccinating those children at highest risk. The prime minister’s office and the Cabinet secretariat coordinated collaboration between health and 12 non-health ministries, which included Women and Child Development; Panchayati Raj, Human Resource Development; Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, among others.

Vaccine supplies were tracked using the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network and cold chain tracking programme, and distributed using the alternate vaccine delivery mechanism.

First Published: Dec 13, 2018 07:56 IST