Intensified Mission Indradhanush launched

Visakhapatnam: Minister for Health Kamineni Srinivas launched ‘Intensified Mission Indradhanush’ at the Collectorate here on Sunday. The mission is aimed at preventing communicable preventable diseases such as diphtheria, tuberculosis, cough, tetanus, polio and brain fever from focus group of zero to two years and pregnant women.

Speaking on the occasion, the Health Minister said with an aim to focus on the areas with low immunisation coverage, the government has selected East Godavari and Nellore districts in the state covering all left outs and dropouts to implement Intensified Mission Indradhanush.

“We have set the target to fully immunise more than 90 per cent newborns. Every first week in the month starting from this October to January 2018, vaccines will be administered to eligible infants and pregnant women,” he said.

In East Godavari, 7,000 children and 1,000 pregnant women whereas in Nellore 6,000 children and 900 pregnant women have been identified to administer vaccines, according to the Health Minister.

Since 2015, as part of ‘Mission Indradhanush’ four phases of immunisation drives were conducted till August 2017. During this period, the health workers will be deployed in all the selected areas and administer vaccines.

The National Health Mission and Andhra Pradesh State Health Department called upon the parents of children less than two years and pregnant women who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated to come forward and avail the services. Collector Pravin Kumar, DH&MO Ramesh and others attended.