Less than the half of the children in four districts of the state are immunized and are susceptible to various forms of disabilities, childhood and life threatening diseases.
According to a report by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Churachandpur, Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul districts have been included in the 201 ‘high focus districts’ in the country. With only 18.80 percent and 29.70 percent of immunized children Churachandpur and Tamenglong districts has the lowest rate of immunization. While, the other two districts- Senapati and Ukhrul recorded with 47.70 percent and 33.80 percent respectively.
Unimmunized and partially immunized children run a 3-6 times higher risk of death as compared with fully immunized children. It is critical to indentify the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children and address these issues with focused micro-planning, provision of additional financial resources and systematic immunization drives to reach these children with all life-saving vaccines.
Recent evaluations have indicated that the major reasons for inability to reach with all vaccines to children are lack of awareness among parents about the benefits of vaccination, fear of adverse events following immunization and operational reasons such as non-availability of vaccines or vaccination during vaccination sessions. Interestingly, the report also said that round 57.1 parents in the four districts did not feel the need to vaccinate their children, while around 23.5 percent of them don’t know about the vaccine.
With an aim to bring down child mortality and morbidity in the country, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has launched its ambitious mission Idradhanush in 201 high focus districts including the four districts of Manipur.
Under the mission, a total number of 308 ANM and 817 ASHA/AWW staffs are working to vaccinate the unimmunized children in the four high focus districts of Manipur. The programme that has been started from April 7, 2015 will provide vaccination against seven life threatening diseases- diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B that can be prevented with vaccination. During the three consecutive months it will reach out to unreached children and pregnant women through targeted intervention.
