A sustained disinformation campaign against India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) has once again surfaced. This time, the target is measles-rubella (MR) programme launched in five states and UTs—Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry, Goa and Lakshadweep—on February 7.
The insidious campaign started in social media just before the launch of the drive, and parental resistance surfaced not only in remote countryside, but also in metropolitan areas.
To their credit, the state governments stood up and even threatened action against mischief-makers. But even after two weeks of the launch and sustained efforts by government officials as well as professional bodies—Indian Council of Medical Research, Indian Pediatricians Association and international organisations such as the WHO and Unicef—to debunk the myths, sporadic parental resistance continues.
This is not the first time, insidious myths have blocked or slowed down the mass immunisation campaigns in India. In fact, motivated or ill-informed myth generation has afflicted immunisation drives in other parts of the world.
Measles still kills an estimated 50,000 children, mostly under five years of age, in India annually. The country accounts for more than one-third of 1,34,200 measles deaths globally.
Though generally a mild infection, rubella has serious consequences if it infects pregnant women, causing congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), which heightens public health concern. In 2010, an estimated 1.03 lakh children were born with CRS globally, of which 46 per cent were in South-East Asia region. Implementation of rubella vaccination strategies substantially reduced the incidences of the infection in many countries.
In its first phase, the MR drive targets nearly 3.6 crore children in the five states/UTs. As majority of the target population is in the school-going age group, it is important all the private and government schools participate, and parents lend their support.
However, the resistance to the MR drive has to be seen in the larger perspective of ill-informed opposition to UIPs of the past. In fact, the creation and perpetuation of myths has been a marked feature of almost all occasions when new vaccines were introduced under UIPs in India and elsewhere. The ill-informed resistance to immunisation and vaccinations seems to prove effectiveness of the popular German saying—“Lies have long legs.”
It is important, therefore, for the public health authorities, medical professionals, media and other stakeholders to provide the people with informed choices. This will be important for India’s vaccine basket. The latest to be added to the basket are measles-rubella and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.
Unfortunately, the media has been strident in reporting any adverse outcome of health programmes based on limited research evidence or falsified data.
It was observed that either paucity of time or an inherent drawback in journalists’ training to understand scientific evidence has had a moribund effect on the quality of health reporting. As India unveils ambitious plans, such as universal immunisation and Swachh Bharat, it is vital that public health communication improves.
A positive step in this direction is the critical appraisal skills programme launched by Unicef for media students and journalists, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and Thomson Reuters Foundation and the George Institute for Global Health.
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