BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has raised objections over Odisha’s ranking in Niti Aayog’s ‘Healthy States, Progressive India’ report released last month and urged to revise it basing on actual data.
As per the second health index report, Odisha had slipped by one rank compared to last year and was placed on the 19th position. The index score was impacted as the State recorded only 59.8 per cent immunisation coverage while treatment success rate of new microbiologically-confirmed tuberculosis cases slipped from 88.9 per cent in 2015 to 72.5 per cent in 2016 against the national target of 85 per cent.
In a letter to CEO of Niti Aayog Amitabh Kant, Chief Secretary AP Padhi clarified that the decrease in full immunisation coverage was due to non-administration of measles vaccine in the last few months of 2017-18. Since as per guidelines, the gap between two live attenuated vaccines should not be less than 28 days, measles vaccine was not administered to eligible children in 13 districts where vaccination of Japanese Encephalitis was conducted from November 27 to December 31, 2017.
The State, however, administered Measles and Rubella (MR) vaccine from January 29 to April 6 and achieved 98 per cent coverage, but it did not reflect in the ranking as there was no separate category to report MR vaccination. “Of 1,12,25,643 targeted children aged between 9 months and 15 years, 1,10,37,026 have been administered MR vaccine. As MR also contains measles vaccine, it implies that children below the age of one year have received the vaccine. Full immunisation coverage has always been more than 84 per cent for the last five years. Accordingly, the State’s achievement on full immunisation coverage may be revised,” Padhi wrote.
The Chief Secretary also indicated that treatment success rate of new microbiologically-confirmed tuberculosis cases has been more than 85 per cent since the past several years. But, 100 per cent data could not be uploaded in the newly introduced ‘NIKSHAY’ portal due to an application error. Since the tuberculosis treatment success rate was 87 per cent in 2017-18 and it was sustained in 2018-19, it may be considered as 87 pc for the ranking, he said.
Padhi has also raised objections over calculation of vacancies in specialist positions on the sanctioned strength of 2017 instead of 2016. He suggested to calculate doctors’ vacancy against the required number of posts and not on the basis of sanctioned posts to avoid penalising States.