Kohima, April 5 (MExN): The first round of Mission Indradhanush phase-3 will be held from April 7–13 in six districts of Nagaland (Kohima, Dimapur, Tuensang, Mon, Wokha, and Kiphire), which come under high focus districts. This was informed during the meeting of State Task Force for Immunization on Mission Indradhanush phase-3 conducted on April 5 at IDSP conference hall, Directorate of Health and Family Welfare. The meeting, chaired by Senti Ao, Secretary, Health & Family welfare, was attended by Director of Health, Director of Family welfare, Mission Director of NHM, SPO NHM, IEC Bureau, Asstt. Director of Social Welfare, ASHA Nodal Officer, RRC-NE and UNICEF representative, SMO, WHO SIO & CCO and other staff.
The Mission Indradhanush phase-3 will continue for four months till July 2016 (7 days activity) in hard to reach areas so as to reach the unreached target population. The target population for the six districts is 10,942 for 0-2 years, 7179 for 5 years, and 1953 pregnant women.
SMO, WHO shared the monitoring findings, where he spelled out that children are hugely left out during the immunization sessions hampering the indicator of immunization coverage due to following reasons: There is 50% awareness gap, 20-25% AEFI apprehension, no Micro plan in place, four key messages were not disseminated after the immunization. He further urged to update the existing micro plan.
UNICEF consultants, Nagaland also shared the activities being carried out to address some of the issues highlighted in the meeting. With the support from UNICEF, one day sensitization workshop for the senior health staff on Social and Behavioral Change Communication and four days in-house training were given to the district staff to address the awareness gap and AEFI apprehension through the workshop. He also said that 2 days training workshop on routine immunization on micro planning was also conducted on March 29-30 in Wokha district and the same proposal has been incorporated in the financial PIP.
Mission Director of NHM and Director of Family Welfare stressed on the importance of giving regular incentive to the ASHA for the activities they carry out and the importance of briefing the program activities to the Deputy Commissioner.
Dr. Visasieü Kire, SIO presented a PPT on State preparedness for Mission Indradhanush phase-3. She said that she had received micro plan from all the districts for Mission Indradhanush. Vaccines and IEC materials have been distributed to all the districts and fund released to all the six districts for the first round. She also highlighted that the immunization coverage in the phase 1 is 90 % and phase 2 is 92 %. She shared the role and responsibility of DC, Education and Social Welfare departments.
