Immunisation need of the hour : Workshop gets under way

Bhopal, Aug 6: 'Need is to change at grassroots and you can inspire that change', Dr Hamid El Bashir State Representative UNICEF Office for Madhya Pradesh said while addressing District Immunisation Officers and others present from twenty four districts of the state in inaugural of three day Routine Immunisation workshop.

He added that though State of Madhya Pradesh has indicators, which are low, and have problems of delivery of services to the people at the village level. But he added that change is possible, imminent and is near. We need to strengthen monitoring, engage communities and support behaviour change. He added that UNICEF is committed to that change and suggested a five-point mechanism which can help bring in that change.

The points according to hims are 1. Identify pockets that are hard to reach which have low performance indicators, 2. Need to identify, difficult to reach populations in the above identified pockets, 3. To Increase focus on urban slums, 4. To strengthen monitoring system and database management and 5. To adopt a campaign that can build an enabling atmosphere of change by engaging civil society partners.

Dr Naresh Goyal Assistant Commissioner Government of India while opening the meeting stressed on the importance of immunisation. He said that Government of India had reviewed progress of routine immunisation in the year 2004 and all the recommendations that were suggested in that review were agreed by the Government in the year 2005. All efforts are being put both by Centre and State and in case still we are not reaching may be we need to look into it. He spoke on the need of strengthening reporting and accuracy of the reported data, which is very important. He added that ten districts in Madhya Pradesh have low routine immunisation indicators, but there are examples of districts which are doing well.

This is first of the series of the initiatives, Dr Gagan Gupta, Health Specialist with UNICEF office for Madhya Pradesh. He added that this training will not only look at the elements of strengthening routine immunisation, but will also look into the issue of adverse events following Immunisation and issue of the database.

Dr Yogiraj Sharma, Director Public Health, while addressing the participants said that we must use this training an opportunity to improve. We need to follow a bottom up approach and not only plan better, deliver better and also ensure timely reporting. Dr Balwinder of WHO, Dr Vijay Kiran of 'Immunisation Basics, Dr A N Mittal Joint Director RCH Directorate of Health Services, Dr Jayshree Chandra, Deputy Director, Child Health, Directorate of health services were also present.