‘Polio, tetanus deadlines tough to meet’

The Health Ministry’s deadlines to eradicate polio and tetanus among the newborn by 2007 and 2009 seems to be a distant dream as a surv...

The Health Ministry’s deadlines to eradicate polio and tetanus among the newborn by 2007 and 2009 seems to be a distant dream as a survey has shown that the immunisation programme is yet to reach a majority of children in the country.

The district household survey for immunisation 2002-2003 shows that 17.9 million infants were not immunised, which is a third of the global figure.

Of the children not immunised, 93 per cent were from 15 states. Further, 40 per cent of these children are from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Almost 6.3 million children who came in contact with immunisation services did not get their measles vaccine.

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Of the surveyed 224 districts, 176 districts (72 per cent) showed an average decrease of 15.4 per cent in the last five years. Only 27 per cent of the districts showed an improvement while two districts didn’t show any change.

The other points highlighted in the survey are:

• There has been a marked increase in the number of districts where even the DPT coverage rates less than 30 per cent of the population.

• The survey shows that not a single district in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh has been able to achieve the targeted 80 per cent DPT coverage. The condition in West Bengal is equally bad with only 12 per cent areas achieving the target.

• In Rajasthan’s 16 districts alone, even 40 per cent children have not been fully immunised. In Barmer and Jaisalmer, the percentage is 14 and 13 per cent respectively.

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• The percentage of fully immunised children is the lowest at just 0.7 percent in Assam’s North Cachar Hills district.

	Ministry goals

			• To achieve polio eradication certification by 2007 • To eliminate neonatal tetanus by 2009 • To reduce measles mortality by two-third by 2010 • To achieve and maintain a level of 70 per cent coverage with two doses of Vitamin A supplement to kids under three

Reacting to the survey results, the Health Ministry has tried to revamp its the Medium Term Strategic Plan for Universal Immunisation Programme 2004-2009. The government has listed gaps in data generation and analysis of performance, evaluation, field supervision and monitoring as the major causes of the failure.

The government says that in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Assam, there is little capacity in the system to assess where the non-immunised children are and prioritise these areas.

‘‘This is due to a mixture of reasons including human resource constraints, little or no on the job training, lack of resource for mobility and poor vaccine availability. This is also due to the inability to plan effectively at grassroots levels for routine immunisation service,’’ said a Ministry official.

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The Ministry has called for increased coordination, which will include national-level meetings of states, national operational guidelines and strengthening supervision.