Punjab tops highest full immunisation coverage of children in India

Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that Health department is vaccinating the children against ten diseases including Tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, Poliomyelitis, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hemophilus influenza B, Rotavirus diarrhoea, Measles and Rubella.

Chandigarh, Topping the country in immunisation of children, Punjab has covered 89.1 per cent as per NFHS-4 and 95 per cent as per HMIS 2018-19.

Announcing the achievement, Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu expressed satisfaction that state's flagship immunization programmes had significantly reduced incidence of major common diseases amongst infants and children. He said that Health department is vaccinating the children against ten diseases including Tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, Poliomyelitis, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hemophilus influenza B, Rotavirus diarrhoea, Measles and Rubella.

The Minister said that these essential vaccinations had ensured the proper growth of children and it also guaranteed safety of their life from the preventable diseases which caused death of lakhs of children in country.

Mr Sidhu said that children, who, fail to get all these essential vaccines are more likely to fall sick more frequently, would be malnourished. He said that it was on official record, the mortality among un-immunised children is higher than the immunised. He said that over the past few years India has seen remarkable reduction in the infants and under-5 mortality whereas Punjab has seen much more reduction as compared to the national achievement.

He also said that immunisation has played a major role in reduction of major diseases and mortality rate among the children which is principal aim of Punjab government. "During the last decade we have – eradicated Polio, introduced second dose of Measles, introduced Pentavalent Vaccine, shifted from trivalent to bivalent OPV, introduced injectable Polio Vaccine, conducted a successful Measles-Rubella (MR) campaign and introduced MR vaccine in routine immunisation," he added.

The Minister said that recently Health department has also introduced adult dose of Diphtheria Vaccine (shift from TT to Td) into the immunisation programme in order to combat the emergence of Diphtheria in older age groups. “Continuing with the same process we have launched Rotavirus Vaccine in August 2019”, he added.