Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0 Scheme | 24 Feb 2021

Why in News

Recently, the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 3.0 scheme has been rolled out to cover children and pregnant women who missed routine immunisation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key Points

  • About the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 3.0 Scheme:
    • Objective:
      • To reach the unreached population with all the available vaccines under Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) and thereby accelerate the full immunization and complete immunization coverage of children and pregnant women.
    • Coverage:
      • It will have two rounds this year which will be conducted in 250 pre-identified districts/urban areas across 29 States/UTs.
        • The districts have been classified to reflect 313 low risk, 152 medium risk and 250 high risk districts.
      • Beneficiaries from migration areas and remote areas would be targeted as they may have missed their vaccine doses during the pandemic.
    • Significance: It will foster India’s march towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Universal Immunization Programme:
    • Launch:
      • The Immunization Programme in India was introduced in 1978 as ‘Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
      • In 1985, the Programme was modified as ‘Universal Immunization Programme (UIP)’.
    • Objectives of the Programme:
      • Rapidly increasing immunization coverage,
      • Improving the quality of services,
      • Establishing a reliable cold chain system to the health facility level,
      • Introducing a district-wise system for monitoring of performance, and
      • Achieving self-sufficiency in vaccine production.
    • Analysis:
      • UIP prevents mortality and morbidity in children and pregnant women against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases. But in the past, it was seen that the increase in immunization coverage had slowed down and it increased at the rate of 1% per year between 2009 and 2013.
      • To accelerate the coverage, Mission Indradhanush was envisaged and implemented since 2015 to rapidly increase the full immunization coverage to 90%.
  • Mission Indradhanush:
    • Objective:
      • To fully immunize more than 89 lakh children who are either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated under UIP.
      • Targets children under 2 years of age and pregnant women for immunization.
    • Diseases Covered:
      • Provides vaccination against 12 Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD) i.e. diphtheria, Whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, meningitis and pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae type B infections, Japanese encephalitis (JE), rotavirus vaccine, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and measles-rubella (MR).
      • However, Vaccination against Japanese Encephalitis and Haemophilus influenzae type B is being provided in selected districts of the country.
  • Intensified Mission Indradhanush 1.0:
    • Launch:
      • It was launched in October 2017.
    • Coverage:
      • Under IMI, greater focus was given on urban areas which were one of the gaps of Mission Indradhanush.
      • It focused to improve immunisation coverage in select districts and cities to ensure full immunisation to more than 90% by December 2018 instead of 2020.
  • Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0:
    • Launch:
    • Coverage:
      • It had targets of full immunization coverage in 272 districts spread over 27 States.
      • It aimed to achieve at least 90% pan-India immunisation coverage by 2022.

Source:TH