Srinagar, Aug 07 (KNO): The first round of immunization under the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 5.0 commenced in Jammu & Kashmir on Monday and is expected to continue till the 12th of the month, officials said.
Director Family Welfare, MCH and Immunization, J&K Dr Tabasum Jabeen told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that the Mission Indradhanush 5.0 is a vaccination program that is aimed to cover the left out children as many children remain unvaccinated and partially vaccinated.
She said that under this program, all children and pregnant women will be covered and we will make sure they are vaccinated.
“IMI 5.0 will focus on reaching zero-dose children aged between 0-5 years, ensuring that every child receives life-saving vaccines,” she said, adding, “The initiative is also intended to be the big leap for achieving Measles & Rubella elimination in the country by ensuring that every child under 5 years of age has completed the two-dose schedule of Measles and Rubella Containing Vaccine (MRCV).”
Once we will cover all the children, only then we will be able to achieve the target of MR elimination by 2030, Dr Tabasum said.
The officials said the immunization campaign will be supported by the U-Win platform, which ensures effective tracking of beneficiaries which includes children aged 0-5 and pregnant women. They informed that comprehensive training has been conducted on the usage of the U-Win platform, which is part of India’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), at the divisional, district and block levels in both Kashmir and Jammu.
The program will be implemented in three phases, with Phase 1 scheduled from August 7 to 12, followed by Phase 2 from September 11 to 16, and Phase 3 from October 9 to 14.
The Director explained that registering children aged 0-5 and pregnant women on the U-Win portal will enable the tracking of beneficiaries to ensure no one is missed or left out. “The beneficiary will receive a message once the dose will be due and after completion of all immunization doses, the beneficiary will get a card, so everything will be digitalized and it will help to find out the child who hasn't got the dose so as to reach to them,” she said.
The officials informed that the program targets children aged 0-2 years (0-23 months) who may have missed age-appropriate vaccinations or dropped out of the schedule. It also includes all children between 2-5 years who have not received the required Measles-Rubella (MR) 1 and MR 2 vaccinations, as well as booster doses for DPT and OPV.
The program aims to vaccinate pregnant women who have not been vaccinated or have only received partial vaccinations and high-risk districts, blocks, and areas identified by the state will be prioritised, they said.
They added that the district-level officers like Chief Medical Officers and District Immunization Officers have been trained in this regard and they have trained the block-level officers and then they will train the ANMs and ASHAs. “The ASHA and ANMs will identify children and do head count surveys in villages and that will be verified by the concerned supervisor,” they said.
To strengthen routine immunization planning and delivery mechanism, the MoHFW, GoI, launched its flagship program “Mission Indradhanush” in December 2014 to achieve more than 90 percent full immunization coverage in the country—(KNO)