Government identifying one million zero-dose children for vaccination | Mint

India has launched a massive drive to trace, identify and vaccinate nearly one million children who have not received a single vaccine, as the world’s most populous country seeks to reduce the burden of diseases.

Under the programme launched by the Union ministry of health and family welfare to cover these unvaccinated children, also called zero dose children, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers are going door-to-door to identify such children and motivate them to get vaccinated.

“The government is stepping up its efforts to identify zero-dose children. A micro plan has been prepared and ASHA workers are going door-to-door to look for zero-dose children. The plan aims to reach out to the left-out communities and ensure vaccination of every child with all the required vaccines under UIP within the first year of life. They are preparing a list and motivating parents of such children to get them vaccinated in the next scheduled session,” said an official aware of the matter.

These children mainly come from the north-eastern states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

India runs the world’s largest Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), aiming to vaccinate 26 million children and 29 million pregnant women annually, under which vaccines are provided free of cost to eligible beneficiaries.

Zero dose children are those who have not received any basic vaccine. For operational and reporting purposes, “zero dose children” are children who have not received the first dose of pentavalent vaccine by the age of one year.

The pentavalent vaccine is a combination of five vaccines that provide protection against five diseases – diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b.

Queries sent to the Union Health Ministry remained unanswered.

At a time when antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been identified as one of the biggest threats to global health, the importance of vaccination in preventing AMR cannot be ignored.

Vaccination not only protects people from drug-resistant infections but also reduces their spread as well as the need and use of antibiotics, thereby contributing to the fight against antimicrobial resistance. Hence, it becomes important to reach out to children who have been given zero doses.

The Health Ministry’s strategy for implementing the Zero Dose Scheme includes nationwide implementation of U-WIN, the country’s electronic vaccination registry, strengthening service delivery, enhancing monitoring and counselling, capacity building by strengthening training under routine immunization, and mobilizer incentives, etc.

1 million children in India are on zero dose

“This year, around one million children in India have zero doses. However, this is being considered an achievement as the number of children with zero doses had almost crossed 30 lakh during the Covid-19 pandemic, following which the government made a lot of efforts to reduce this number,” the official had said earlier. India’s vaccination coverage for FY24 is 93.23% of the total population, he added.

Under the flagship Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI 5.0), the government conducts regular immunization drives to ensure that immunization services reach the missed and left-out children and pregnant women across the country. In 2023-24, the Centre had allocated Rs 100 crore. A provision of Rs 89,155 crore has been made for UIP. This is 13% more than the revised estimate of 2022-23.

The World Health Organisation’s Immunisation Agenda 2030 aims to reduce the number of children receiving zero doses by 50% globally by 2030.