Immunisation outreach to resume in September

To increase routine immunisation that had taken a hit due to Covid-19, the Delhi government has decided to restart the outreach campaigns and camps with the help of Accredited Social Health Activists (Asha) and Anganwadi workers September onwards.

The activities had been halted when the nationwide lockdown had been announced in March-end.

As compared to July last year, only 70% of vaccines were administered under the routine immunisation programme last month. “Our data shows in July we saw 70% vaccination as compared to the same month last year. With the lockdown being eased and travel becoming easier, the number of vaccines administered had started picking up over the last couple of months,” , according to senior officials from the health department.

“The immunisation programme had taken a severe hit in April right after the lockdown. In fact, as per the health ministry advisory we should not have immunised children anywhere in Delhi as the entire city had been categorised as red zone. But, we continued immunising those who came to the dispensaries outside of the containment zones. We had stopped actively motivating people to come to the centres to get vaccinated or holding camps in the Anganwadi centres,” the official said.

Delhi women and child development minister Rajendra Pal Singh Gautam said that the each of the 10,000 Anganwadi centres in Delhi will start conducting one camp each month to ensure every child in the area gets vaccinated.