Prime Minister Narendra Modi has late been stressing a lot on achieving the aim of 100% immunisation. Recently while addressing a rally in Himachal Pradesh, he had said that he wants all the children across India to be completely vaccinated by Diwali.
During his two-day trip to his home state, Modi once again with full spirit launched the Indradhanush Mission, an initiative of the Modi government under which all the children who are not vaccinated or incompletely vaccinated should be immunised completely. While launching the campaign from his hometown in Vadnagar, on Sunday, Modi said that no children should suffer from any disease, which can be prevented by the vaccination.
An official statement issued by the Modi government read that “Through the ‘Intensified Mission Indradhanush’ or IMI, the government aims to reach every child below the age of two years and pregnant women still uncovered under the routine immunisation programme.” The statement also said that under the IMI campaign, from now on, a seven-day immunisation drive will be conducted each month till Jan 2018. The IMI campaign plans to cover 173 districts and 17 cities, of which 52 districts will be from the eight northeastern states and 121 from 16 other states.
The campaign will be preferably carried in the areas which are performing low and have a high rate of infant mortality and death during pregnancy in the shortlisted districts and cities.
The official statement issued by the government also read that the campaign will focus on improving the immunisation coverage and will also ensure in achieving 90 % coverage for full immunisation by December 2018 way before the scheduled target of 2020.
Durin his stop at his hometown, the Prime Minister also inaugurated the GMERS Medical College and launched the Innovative Mobile Phone Technology for Community Health Operation (ImTeCHO) in order to provide better facilities and improve the coverage of community-based maternal, neonatal and infant health services.
While addressing the gathering, he also spoke about the many healthcare initiatives taken by his government. He said that “Regulating the prices of stents has immensely helped a large section of the country by reducing the cost of healthcare in the middle-income group and poor families.” He also lauded the success of the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan under which, Private doctors along with the government doctors, on the 9th of every month volunteer to provide free ANC services to pregnant women.
Union Health Minister J P Nadda also addressed the gathering informing that the Indradhanush mission in four phases has reached to more than 2.53 crore children and 68 lakh pregnant women in the country. He also added that improving the health conditions of the children is one of the top priority of the Modi government.