Mission Indradhanush

Mission Indradhanush

Union Ministry of Health and Welfare launched Mission Indradhanush for creating awareness regarding the importance to fully immunize every child against all vaccine preventable diseases in the country. It will cover all children less than two years of age and pregnant women. 

Indradhanush depicting seven colours of the rainbow, aims to cover all those children by 2020 who are either unvaccinated or are partially vaccinated against seven vaccine preventable diseases which include diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B. 

The mission will be implemented in multi phase. In the first phase, 201 high-focus districts will be taken up for implementation of the mission. Of these, 82 districts are in just four states of UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and nearly 25% of the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children of India are in these 82 districts of four states. 

In the second phase, mission will cover 297 focus districts. 

To make the mission mode successful, Health Ministry developed micro plans on the basis of the lessons learned from the Polio eradication towards systems strengthening, vaccine cold chain management, regular surveillance and monitoring of the plans to reach each and every left out and uncovered child. 

In India, only 65% children, out of 2.7 crore, receive all necessary vaccine during their first year and this coverage grows by a mere one percent every year. Of those children who have remained unvaccinated, 40% are because of lack of information, 32% because of apprehension among their parents arising from a lack of awareness and 28% because their parents do not see the need for it. 

The government wants to increase the percentage of immunization to 4-5% with this mission.