The third phase of an immunisation campaign of the Central Government, intended to cover ‘left-out’ or partially covered children, began here on Monday. The campaign will be a week-long effort and will focus on vulnerable areas.
‘Mission Indradhanush,’ supported by global agencies such as World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and Rotary International, aims to achieve full immunisation coverage by 2020.
S. Somasundaram, Deputy Director of Health Services, said that the campaign was repeated every month till July on the same dates. It covered seven vaccine preventable diseases of diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B. More than 800 Health Department and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme workers would conduct immunisation at 325 locations such as health sub-centres and anganwadis. A total of 21 Government vehicles would be pressed into service.
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A total of 1,047 children between ages zero and two years and 293 pregnant women were being targeted in Coimbatore under this initiative. Training programmes were being conducted for the staff involved in this campaign.