Background: Mission Indradhanush
- Launched in:
- Objective: To achieve full immunization coverage by 2020 for children under the age of two years and pregnant women who are either unvaccinated/partially vaccinated against ‘7’ vaccine preventable diseases.
- These 7 diseases are: diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles, and hepatitis B.
- However, in 2017, WHO estimated that a whopping 68 countries, including India, fall well short of the 90 per cent basic immunisation target coverage. In this background, Government of India introduced “Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) in October 2017.
Intensified mission Indradhanush (IMI):
- Objective: To cover all left outs and drop outs in select districts and urban areas with low routine immunization coverage in a specific time-frame (December 2018).
- Target population:
- IMI will focus on children up to 2 years of age and pregnant women who have missed out on routine immunization.
- However, vaccination on demand to children up to 5 years of age will be provided during IMI rounds.
- Strategy:
- Starting from October 7, 2017, states will carry out Intensified Mission Indradhanush drives for seven working days the from 7th day of every month starting from for four consecutive months.
- The key to effective rapid coverage is: Inter-ministerial and inter-departmental coordination; Action based review mechanism and Intensive monitoring and accountability framework
- Progress to be monitored at the highest level under “Proactive Governance and timely implementation (PRAGATi)”.
Recent development:
- The special issue of the BMJ (British Medical Journal) is being brought out on the occasion of the fourth Partners Forum conference organised by the Government of India that will be held in New Delhi on December 12-13.
- Partners’ Forum is short for the meeting every four years of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (The Partnership, PMNCH) that is an alliance of more than 1,000 organisations in 192 countries.
- The organisations work in the sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health communities, as well as health influencing sectors.
