MALAPPURAM: Even as the comprehensive action plan launched in August for the total immunisation of children nears the deadline this month, 34,892 children still remain either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated in Malappuram district. The plan was charted out with the direct supervision of the health minister and top officials to achieve total vaccination in the wake of the outbreak of the deadly diphtheria in the district which claimed two lives. The health department authorities have admitted that the drive has not yielded the desired results because of several reasons, including the resistance from a section of people.
As per the latest statistics available with the district health authorities, 30,260 children remain partially vaccinated and 4,632 are totally unimmunised. “The immunisation campaign has made considerable progress during the last two months. However, stiff resistance from a small section of people has affected the result,” said Dr. V. Ummer Farook, district medical officer of Malappuram. The department has planned to reduce the remaining number of unimmunised /partially vaccinated children by half before the deadline ends.
“We can cover most of the partially vaccinated children by the end of this month. Reaching out to unimmunised children is a Herculean task because the efforts have gone in vain. Our endeavour is to bring down this number to below 2,000,” he said. By the completion of the campaign the district would reach a safe point regarding the spread of the deadly communicable diseases, he pointed out. The long festival holidays in September and October also affected the smooth run of the programmes of the health department.
