Relevance: GS-2: Issues relating to the development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Key phrases: IMI 4.0, Mission Indradhanush, NFHS-5, Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0, UN SDG 3, Universal Immunisation Programme

Why in News?

• India is implementing the largest inoculation drive globally where annually more than three crore pregnant women and 2.6 crore children are covered through the Universal Immunisation Programme as per the Health Minister.

Context:

• The Health Minister virtually launched the IMI 4.0 portal and released the “Operational Guidelines for IMI 4.0 – “Strengthening Immunisation in Urban Areas-A framework for Action” – a handbook for “Mahila Arogya Samiti on Urban Immunisation” and awareness material developed as part of the campaign.
• Three rounds of IMI 4.0 have been planned to catch up on the gaps that might have emerged due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it said, adding the activity will be conducted in 416 districts across 33 States and UTs, the statement said.
• In the first round (Feb-April 2022), 11 states will conduct IMI 4.0. These are Assam, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura and Chhattisgarh.
• The others (22 states) will conduct the rounds from April to May 2022. These states/UTs include Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, Puducherry, Delhi, Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Jharkhand, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, A & N Islands.

What is Mission Indradhanush?

• Mission Indradhanush is a health mission of the Government of India launched in 2014. The scheme this seeks to drive towards 90% full immunisation coverage of India and sustain the same by year 2022.
• The Mission Indradhanush aims to cover all those children who are either unvaccinated, or are partially vaccinated against vaccine preventable diseases.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush:

• To further intensify the immunisation programme, PM Narendra Modi launched the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) on 8 October 2017. Through this the Government aims to reach each and every child up to two years of age and all those pregnant women who have been left uncovered under the routine immunisation programme/UIP.
• The focus of special drive was to improve immunisation coverage in select districts and cities to ensure full immunisation to more than 90% by December 2018 instead of 2020.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0

• To boost the routine immunisation coverage in the country, the Minister of Health and Family welfare introduced Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0 to ensure reaching the unreached with all available vaccines and accelerate the coverage of children and pregnant women in the identified districts and blocks from December 2019-March 2020. This aims to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of ending preventable child deaths by 2030.
• It aims at immunising 272 districts in 27 States and at block level (652 blocks) in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar because of its hard to reach and tribal populations.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0:

• It is a campaign aimed to reach those children and pregnant women who have been missed out or been left out of the Routine Immunisation Programme.
• This is aimed to accelerate the full immunisation of children and pregnant women through a mission mode intervention.
• It is being conducted in pre-identified 250 districts/urban areas across 29 States/UTs in the country.
• Beneficiaries from migration areas and hard to reach areas will be targeted as they may have missed their vaccine doses during the pandemic.

Outcome of Immunisation Programme in India:

• It is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions and largely responsible for reduction of vaccine preventable under-5 mortality rate.
• The two achievement of UIP have been the elimination of polio in 2014 and maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination in 2015.
• The Full Immunisation Coverage among children aged 12-23 months of age has increased from 62% (NFHS-4) to 76.4 %( NFHS-5).
• As on April 2021, during the various phases of Mission Indradhanush, a total of 3.86 crore children and 96.8 lakh pregnant women have been vaccinated.
• As a result of continuous efforts over the years for strengthening routine immunisation and intensification drives conducted from time to time, the immunisation coverage has shown a considerable improvement as per the latest reports of National Family Health Survey (2019-21) as compared to National Family Health Survey -4 (2015-16).

Way forward:

Partially immunized and unimmunized children are most susceptible to childhood diseases and are at a much higher risk of dying as compared to fully immunized children. Immunization can help in preventing large-scale outbreaks of diseases as well as keeping the disease under control in an area, thus reducing the stress on an already burdened health system.

Thus, full immunization is critical to reduce child mortality and progress on socio-economic indicators. To conclude we can say that Mission Indradhanush with Universal Immunization Programme scheme is a master stroke in fulfilling the sustainable goals set up by United Nations of eradicating diseases, reduce infant mortality rate, and provide more aid to pregnant woman and her baby.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. In the context of launching of Intensified Mission Indradhanush 4.0, discuss the scope of Intensified Mission Indradhanush to protect infants, children and pregnant women from diseases and mortality? Critically comment. (250 words)