Intensified Mission Indradhanush 5.0: Children and pregnant women to be vaccinated starting August 7
Indranil Dutta
Assam. A meeting was called by the Dima Hasao Autonomous Council principal secretary, Thai-tsho Daulagupu to discuss regarding Mission Indradhanush 5.0. Under the Mission Indradhanush 5.0 the unvaccinated, partially vaccinated children and the pregnant women shall be covered starting from August 7 till August 12 of the first phase.
In this regard a meeting for media sensitization also followed inorder to propagate the message which shall be held in three phases The three rounds of IMI 5.0 will be conducted as per the schedule given viz., Round -1 from 7 – 12 August, 2023, round -2 from 11 – 16 September, 2023 and round -3 from 9 – 14 October, 2023.
During the media briefing, Rebecca Changsan, ACS stated that this mission is to focus on hard to reach areas and vaccine hesitant with focus on hard to reach areas and vaccine hesitant areas. She said that India launched its flagship programme Mission Indradhanush a periodic Immunization Intensification drive in December, 2014 with an aim to strengthen Routine Immunization . The mission over the last nine years has shown a positive impact on Routine Immunization coverage.
The intensified programme in 2017 also resulted in positive impact resulting to desirable outcome. However The achievement made in the past have been hindered by the Covid-19 pandemic especially those who refused Covid-19 vaccination continued to refuse the Routine Immunization also. Coupled with other existing inequities as a result of Socio-Economic status , education level, rural setting, misconceptions regarding vaccine, fear of Adverse effects following immunization etc have further contributed to the immunization gaps.
Therfore the objective of IMI 5.0 is to identify all children upto 5 years and pregnant women for missed doses, register them in U-WIN portal and vaccinate them in specially planned IMI sessions. We have the IMI sessions spread through out the district .
