Tamil Nadu’s immunization cover 99 per cent, says Union minister

CHENNAI: Nearly a fortnight after the Niti Aayog’s health index report pushed Tamil Nadu to rank 9, the Union health ministry seems to have formally accepted the state’s protest. On Friday, Union health minster Harsh Vardhan told Parliament that the percentage of children covered under immunization programme in Tamil Nadu has touched 98.85% compared to an all India average of 91.76.
In a reply to the question raised by Rekha Verma on vaccination programme, Harsh Vardhan said full immunization coverage has gone up across low-coverage districts of the country. He listed out the details of children covered under the immunization programme in each state. While in states/UT like Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu and Uttarakhand the coverage is more than 100% (it may include children who are migrants), Jammu and Kashmir and Tamil Nadu have above 98% coverage in 2018-19.
Tamil Nadu had two deaths due to diphtheria in 2018 (180 across India) and two deaths (254 across India) due to Japanese Encephalitis in 2017. There were no deaths reported in the state due to whooping cough or neonatal tetanus between 2016 and 2018, it said. Nevertheless, Tamil Nadu’s record for 2016-17 (75.70%) and 2017-18 (75.28%) has remained unchanged.
The Healthy States Progressive India Report’ said the immunization coverage in Tamil Nadu had dropped from 82.7% in 2015-2016 to 76.1% in 2017-2018. State health minister C Vijayabaskar said the Niti Aayog has got its numbers and formulas wrong. In at least two key parameters institutional deliveries and immunization coverage of children — the healthy states report put TN far below its performance because the Centre decided to take exaggerated approximate numbers instead of real-time numbers for base reference, he said.
While the central agency fixed an expected live birth target of 11.8 lakh for Tamil Nadu based on crude birth rate and census data, even though the real-time data rate captured by the state though Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluvation (PICME) showed 9.4 lakh births. “If the actual live birth in the state is taken as the denominator the institutional delivery will be 99.8% against the 80.5% mentioned in the Niti Aayog report.” He also said immunization coverage mentioned in the report doesn’t depict the correct picture, he said in a letter dated June 27.
However, Harsh Vardhan did not explicitly agree with the state’s allegation. Replying to another question, he said the common reasons of underperformance of states inter alia include improper reporting, limited infrastructure, administrative issues and delay in funding. The deterioration between base year and reference year was primarily due to the performance in various indices such as total fertility rate, low birth weight, sex ratio at birth, TB treatment success rate, quality accreditation of public health facilities.
But that didn’t matter to most officials. The minister’s latest immunization coverage data, reported by the states/ UT on July 17, is based on birth cohort reported by the state. “We are glad they accepted our point,” said a senior official.