Around 70,000 kids to be covered under Indradhanush scheme

As many as 31,000 children under the age of two and 38,000 children between the ages of five and six who have missed their immunisation will be covered under the fourth phase of the Union government’s mission Indradhanush scheme, which will start on Friday.

This phase of the scheme covers seven districts in the state — Bengaluru Urban, BBMP, Belagavi, Vijayapura, Kalaburagi, Mysuru and Tumakuru with a total of 868 planning units across the district.

Principal secretary, health department, Shalini Rajneesh said these seven districts are focus districts as they have immunisation below 70%.

The team of 3As — ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists), Anganwadi workers and ANM (auxiliary nurse midwife), will be given Rs 5,000 each for achieving the 100% immunisation target according to the microplan in their districts. The first team to achieve this in every district can be given the prize amount, she said.

The programme is aimed at covering children who either missed vaccination or were partially vaccinated against 10 vaccine-preventable diseases, including diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles, rubella, and hepatitis B.

The programme also covers expectant mothers who will be immunised for tetanus. The total number of pregnant women due for vaccination under the scheme is 6,592.  The immunisation drive will end on July 17.

According to the ministry of health and family welfare, Karnataka has targeted around 1.60 crore children out of whom 1.58 crore have already been vaccinated during the previous phases of the scheme in April 2015.

Vaccine hesitancy by various groups is one of the challenges the department faces in implementing the vaccination drive. Community resistance from Muslim community leading to schools’ and madrasas’ refusal, rumors of correlation between measles-rubella vaccine and autism are some obstacles, she said.