Vaccination and misinformation
Tamil Nadu’s record on healthcare has been largely enviable. Recently Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told Parliament that the percentage of children covered under the state’s immunisation programme was 98.85% against a national average of 91.76%. Health officials in the state felt vindicated as they had objected to the ranking of the state in the Niti Aayog’s health index. Officials pointed to two figures—institutional delivery and immunisation—that they said the report had gotten wrong. That the state cannot be complacent has been made evident by the spurt in cases of diptheria over the past few months. This year, two children from a tribal hamlet died of the vaccine-preventable disease. Outbreaks have been reported in Kadambur Hill, and on a more minor scale, in Chennai and Tiruchy. That a disease such as diptheria, almost entirely forgotten, can kill in a ‘developed’ state is cause for great concern.
Health experts have pointed to an erosion of public trust in the healthcare system. This is said to have stemmed from the reported deaths of children following administration of pentavalent vaccines in 2011. Experts argue that analysis of the actual causes for the deaths were not widely disseminated. Meanwhile, social media has allowed for the rapid spread of questionable information. Globally too, fear-mongering against vaccines has led to measles outbreaks in developed countries. Unfortunately, vaccine scepticism is most seen among educated persons.
Tamil Nadu’s problem, therefore, is a mix of a developed country’s and a developing country’s. On one hand, vulnerable persons are not accessing the full range of immunisation services. This means the state must go to them proactively, as it has done after outbreaks were reported. On the other hand, there are pockets of better-off, educated families who are against vaccines. The government must reach out to them and also actively thwart misinformation campaigns.