Mission Indradhanush Offers Vaccination Against 7 Life-Threatening Diseases

The India Government launched ‘Misson Indradhanush’ a nationwide immunization programme on 25th December 2014 with an aim to cover all those children who are partially vaccinated or unvaccinated and with a special focus on 201 districts.

Nearly 50% of the total partially vaccinated or unvaccinated children are found in these high focus districts.

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Mission Indradhanush will provide immunization against seven life-threatening diseases (diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B). In addition, vaccination against Japanese Encephalitis and Haemophilus influenza type B will be provided in selected districts/states of the country. Vaccination against tetanus will be provided to the pregnant women.

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.

Four special vaccination campaigns will be conducted between March and June 2015 and this will cover all children under two years of age and pregnant women for tetanus toxoid vaccine. This immunization campaign will be conducted for a period of 7-10 days every month for four consecutive months.

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The government has sought technical support from various external agencies like WHO, UNICEF and Rotary to achieve the goals of this programme.

The Health Minister stated this in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

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An official revealed that in an effort to check child deaths due to preventable diseases like measles and diphtheria, the central government has launched a special immunization week to reach out to 184 high-risk districts.

Source-Medindia

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