Relevance: GS Paper II (Development & Welfare)
[850 words reduced to 250]
- The under-five mortality rates In India have declined considerably from 126 in 1990 to 39 in 2017.
- The journey of Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) has been further bolstered by Mission Indradhanush.
- The importance of vaccines in India
- Around 27 million children are born every year in India.
- India also has the largest burden of under-five mortality.
- 0.1 million children die due to rotavirus-induced diarrhoea .
- Unimmunised and partially-immunised children are most vulnerable to diseases and disability.
- Challenges to vaccination programme
- Low full immunisation coverage (65 per cent),
- limited basket of vaccines and,
- quality and logistics of vaccine management
- Mission Indradhanush
- To hasten the coverage to at least 90 per cent till 2020, the Mission Indradhanush was launched in 2014.
- seven vaccines would be given to all children and pregnant women who have missed out.
- It would cover all far-flung areas.
- To focus onto the least vaccinated areas, MI has been transformed into “Intensified Mission Indradhanush” (IMI)
- There is a sharper focus on surveillance activities
- It has led to increase to 7 per cent in full immunisation coverage in one year from 1 per cent in the past.
- aims to achieve 90 per cent immunisation by December 2018.
- aims to achieve SDG-3 by 2030
- An immunisation programme is the most cost-effective public health intervention.
