Mission Indradhanush: Monitoring one of the largest immunisation programs of the world

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has launched Mission Indradhanush on 25 December, 2014 as a special nationwide initiative to vaccinate all unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children under the Universal Immunization Programme by 2020.

This will be done through special catch-up campaigns to rapidly increase full immunization coverage of children by 5% and more annually.

Under Mission Indradhanush, the Health Ministry has identified 201 high focus districts across the country that have the highest number of partially vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Nearly 50% of all unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children are in these 201 districts. Of the 201 districts, 82 districts are concentrated in the four states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and nearly 25% of the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children of India are in these 82 districts of these four states. These districts will be targeted for intensive efforts to improve the routine immunization coverage in the country. The ultimate goal is to protect all children and pregnant women against vaccine preventable diseases in India.

AREAS UNDER FOCUS

Mission Indradhanush will target 201 high priority districts in the first phase and 297 districts for the second phase in the year 2015. The implementation of the first phase of the Mission in 201 high focus districts will commence from 7th April, World Health Day.

Within the districts, the Mission will focus on the 400,000 high risk settlements identified by the polio eradication programme. These are the pockets with low coverage due to geographic, demographic, ethnic and other operational challenges. Evidence has shown that most of the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children are concentrated in these areas.

The following areas will be targeted through special immunization campaigns:

High risk areas identified by the polio eradication programme. These include populations living in areas such as:

• Urban slums with migration
• Nomads
• Brick kilns
• Construction sites
• Other migrants (fisherman villages, riverine areas with shifting populations etc.) and
• Underserved and hard to reach populations (forested and tribal populations etc.)
• Areas with low routine immunization (RI) coverage (pockets with Measles/vaccine preventable disease (VPD) outbreaks).
• Areas with vacant sub-centers: No ANM posted for more than three months.
• Areas with missed Routine Immunisation (RI) sessions: ANMs on long leave and similar reasons
• Small villages, hamlets, dhanis or purbas clubbed with another village for RI sessions and not having independent RI sessions.

Mission Indradhanush - 201 Focus Districts