VIJAYAWADA:The Central government on Tuesday launched a special 4-month infant immunisation drive called ‘Indradhanush’ in 201 districts across the country. In Andhra Pradesh, the programme is being implemented in Krishna, East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Kurnool districts. The immunisation programme will be conducted from 7th to 14th of every month from this month to July.
The immunisation programme in Krishna district was launched at the Sub-Collector’s office here by Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao.
Speaking on the occasion, the minister stressed the importance of immunisation in curbing the infant mortality rate. He said that the district administration had identified 720 high-risk areas, where there were 3,823 children who had not been given any kind of vaccines so far. While these children would be administered anti-polio and other necessary vaccines, ‘Pentavalent’ vaccine would be administered to 1,185 pregnant women in these areas to prevent the outbreak of polio, TB, diphtheria, Hepatitis B and other dreadful diseases, he added.
Joint collector Gandham Chandrudu said that at all sub-centers, the ANMs and Anganwadi workers were deployed to administer the vaccines to children. For those who could not come to the sub-centres, the vaccination would be done at their doorsteps, he added.
He said that the officials of the medical and health department should also deploy mobile vaccination centres to cover the homeless migrants -- especially children and pregnant women -- whose numbers have gone up lately. He added that the officials should maintain a record of the children to whom they had administered the vaccines and should link up the details with the Aadhaar Card details of their family members. Director of Medical and Health Department Asmit Jyoti Singh, Mandal Parishad president Vadlamudi Jaganmohan Rao and Sarpanch S Venkateswaramma were among those who participated in the programme.