News Highlights
The number of unvaccinated children or missed first dose of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis combined vaccine doubled due to the pandemic, says data published by WHO, UNICEF
Key Findings of the Report
- The data published by WHO and UNICEF recorded the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in approximately 30 years.
- The percentage of children who received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) fell 5 percentage points between 2019 and 2021 to 81 per cent.
- As a result, 25 million children missed out on one or more doses of DTP through routine immunisation services in 2021 alone.
Major Reason for Under Vaccination
- Many factors contributed to the observed decline, including
- An increased number of children living in conflict and fragile settings
- Increased misinformation about vaccination
- COVID-19 related issues such as service and supply chain disruptions, resource diversion to response efforts, and containment measures that limited immunisation service access and availability.
Observations about India
- The progress towards reducing the number of zero-dose children in India was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The number of children who did not receive the first dose of the DTP-1 vaccine in India increased to 3 million in 2020 from 1.4 million in 2019.
- India was quick to prevent further backslide with catchup programmes such as the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 3, which enabled the country to bring down the figure to 2.7 million in 2021 from 3 million in 2020
- Intensified Mission Indradhanush 4.0
- Report mentions IMI 4.0 which is the largest vaccination drive globally reaching out to missed children and pregnant women
- Annually, India vaccinates more than 30 million pregnant women and 27 million children through the Universal Immunisation Programme.
Mission Indradhanush
- It was launched with the goal of fully immunising over 89 lakh children who are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated under Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) .
- It protects against 12 Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, including diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, meningitis, pneumonia, rotavirus vaccine, Haemophilus influenzae type B infections, Japanese encephalitis (JE), pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), and measles-rubella vaccine (MR).
- However, vaccination against Japanese Encephalitis and Haemophilus influenzae type B is being provided in some selected districts of the country.
- Mission Indradhansuh has also been identified as a flagship initiative under Gram Swaraj Abhiyan and Extended Gram Swaraj Abhiyan.
Intensified Mission Indradhanush(IMI)
- IMI was launched in October 2017 to further intensify the immunisation programme.
- The aim is to reach 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 the special drive was to improve immunisation coverage in select districts and cities to ensure full immunisation to more than 90% by December 2018.
- IMI 3.0 was launched in 2021 with a focus to cover all the children and pregnant women who had missed their vaccine doses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- In February 2022, Govt launched Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 4.0.
Content Source: The Hindu