Union Health Minister J P Nadda today asked officials to find ways to improve routine immunisation so that India can stop relying on special 'mission-mode' projects to deliver vaccines to children.
Buoyed by the success of his ministry's flagship programme, 'Mission Indradhanush', Nadda at a WHO event, asked officials to strategise so that the mission targets are included into routine immunisation.
Noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed for conducting antenatal check ups on the 9th of every month, Nadda said his ministry is deliberating on how to formalise Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Yojana.
"We are strategising it. Under Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Yojna, we are trying to see to it how it can be formalised and brought under a programme.
"New targets will be set up. We have planned eradication of another disease. We are going forward in that direction," he said.
Routine immunisation needs to be improved in order to stop relying on special 'mission-mode' projects, he said.
"We need to strengthen our health systems and consolidate. We have to improve our routine immunisation. We cannot keep on working on a mission mode. When every year 2.7 crore children are born in the country, we will have to see to it that our routine immunisation improves.
"All these children who have come under Mission Indradhanush, we have to see to it that they come in the ambit of routine immunisation. Only then we will be successful.
"I would suggest the Ministry to strategise accordingly and see to it that the Mission Indradhanush targets come under routine immunisation," Nadda said at the event where the world health body felicitated India for yaws and maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination and handed over certificates to the Minister.
Under Mission Indradhanush, depicting seven colours of the rainbow, the government provides vaccination to seven vaccine preventable diseases which include diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and Hepatitis B. Four new vaccinations have been added to the programme recently.
In May this year, WHO certified India yaws-free. India is the first country under the 2012 WHO neglected tropical diseases (NTD) roadmap to eliminate yaws. India eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNTE) last year in May well before the targeted month.
Nadda said that under 'Mission Indradhanush', last year 51.6 lakh pregnant women were vaccinated against neonatal tetanus. While 1.95 crore children were immunised, 51.6 lakh were fully immunised. He said around 26.9 lakh immunisation sessions took place in the country.
"This is apart from the routine immunisation," he said.
