Mission Indradhanush to cover 13 MP districts under third phase

Thirteen districts in Madhya Pradesh will be covered under the upcoming phase of the Centre's "Mission Indradhanush" initiative aimed at full immunisation of all children in the country, an official said today.

"The third phase of 'Mission Indradhanush' will cover Alirajpur, Jhabua, Ashok Nagar, Raisen, Vidisha, Sagar, Damoh, Tikamgarh, Chhattarpur, Panna, Umaria, Satna and Rewa districts," said V Kiran Gopal Rao, Mission Director, National Health Mission for Madhya Pradesh.

He was speaking at a media workshop organised by the Department of Health and Family Welfare and UNICEF here.

'Mission Indradhanush' was launched by Union Health Minister J P Nadda last year, aiming at immunising all children against seven vaccine preventable diseases namely diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B by 2020.

Real time monitoring of the initiative will be done wherein data will be collated from sub-centre level to district and state level on daily basis, Rao said.

"MP will take the extra mile to reach out to migrant and unreached population in the upcoming phase," he added.

The state reached out to 12,31,186 children in 38 districts under previous two phases of Mission Indradhanush in last fiscal, Santosh Shukla, Deputy Director of Routine Immunisation, National Health Mission, MP government, said.

As many as 3,401,160 children under two years of age were fully immunised under last two phases of Mission Indradhanush, Vandana Bhatia, UNICEF Health Specialist, said.

She said UNICEF supports the immunisation initiative through communication and cold chain monitoring.

In her presentation, she said that 53.6% children under two years of age are fully immunised in Madhya Pradesh according to NFHS-IV (National Family Health Survey).

Senior officials of Public Health department were present on the occasion.