Vadnagar: “Let no child suffer from any vaccine-preventable disease”. This was stated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he launched the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) at Vadnagar in Gujarat. Through this programme, Government of India aims to reach each and every child under two years of age and all those pregnant women who have been left uncovered under the routine immunisation programme. The special drive will focus on improving immunization coverage in select districts and cities to ensure full immunization to more than 90% by December 2018. The achievement of full immunisation under Mission Indradhanush to at least 90% coverage was to be achieved by 2020 earlier. With the launch of IMI, achievement of the target has now been advanced.
The Prime Minister highlighted achievements of the Government including the new National Health Policy 2017 which has been unveiled after fifteen years, and is people-centered. “Regulating of the prices of stents has immensely helped a large section of the country by reducing the cost of healthcare on the middle-income group and poor families”, Modi added.
The Prime Minister expressed satisfaction at the success of the Pradhan MantriMatritvaSurakshaAbhiyaan where private doctors have volunteered to provide free ANC services to pregnant women on the 9th of every month along with government doctors.
Speaking at the function, J P Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, said that the four phases of Mission Indradhanush have reached to more than 2.53 crore children and 68 lakh pregnant women with life-saving vaccines including 5.21 lakh children & 1.27 lakh pregnant women in Gujarat. Through this mission, we have accelerated our progress towards our target of 90 percent full immunization coverage, he stated. Earlier the increase in full immunization coverage was one percent per year which has increased to 6.7 percent per year through the first two phases of ‘Mission Indradhanush’.
With a sharpened focus on high priority districts and urban areas, under IMI, four consecutive immunization rounds will be conducted for seven days in 173 districts — 121 districts and 17 cities in 16 states and 52 districts in 8 northeastern states — every month between October 2017 and January 2018.
IMI will have inter-ministerial and inter-departmental coordination, action-based review mechanism and intensified monitoring and accountability framework for effective implementation of targeted rapid interventions to improve the routine immunization coverage.
Intensified Mission Indradhanush would be closely monitored at the district, state and central level at regular intervals. Further, it would be reviewed by the Cabinet Secretary at the National level and will continue to be monitored at the highest level under a special initiative ‘Proactive Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI)’. At the function, the Prime Minister also dedicated the GMERS Medical College, Vadnagar to the nation and launched the Innovative Mobile Phone Technology for Community Health Operation (ImTeCHO) for improving coverage of community based maternal, neonatal and infant health services to reduce neonatal and infant mortality in Gujarat by empowering health staff through use of innovative mobile phone application. GMERS Medical College serves nearly 400-500 outdoor patients and 80-100 indoor patients daily.