Malappuram: The state government’s move to make vaccination compulsory for school admissions will shatter the prevalent taboo, especially in the Malappuram district. The education department has directed the Director of Public Instruction (DPI) to conduct a survey in schools to collect the details of immunised and partially/unimmunised children as a prelude.
The government has asked the DPI to complete the survey by June 30, and the data would be used to launch an awareness campaign for students and parents. In Malappuram district which witnesses a stiff resistance to immunisation programmes for long, the much-awaited decision will have a great impact making the job of health authorities easier.
Despite special intensive immunisation drives for the past several years the resistance against vaccination has pushed the district down compared to others. As a result, some of the almost disappeared life threatening diseases have made a comeback here. For the second consecutive year, three suspected diphtheria cases have been reported from various parts of the district during the past week. One of them was clinically confirmed diphtheria.
The reemergence of such diseases has proved again that resistance and campaign against the vaccinations in the district have not receded in spite of efforts by the medical authorities. “We have beefed up the vaccination drive and covered all the areas of suspected cases. We haven’t faced any resistance there. But the attitude of the people from other parts of the district has not changed,” says district medical officer Dr V. Ummer Farook.
“The next phase of an extensive immunisation drive will be launched soon.” According to the health authorities, Valavannur, Vettom, Vengara, Kuttippuram, Kondotty, and Mankada blocks are the particularly resistant areas. The authorities have been doing their best to cover the unimmunised. Though the religious orthodoxy is being blamed widely for this, community leaders render their support to medical authorities.
“The anti-vaccination sentiment in some places has nothing to do with the religion. The people with science background itself have created much confusion regarding the vaccination. There is no restriction for vaccination in religion. Mixing religion with this issue is absurd,” says Sheikh Mohammed, the deputy chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Kerala.
Last year the officials who were on a door-to-door campaign against the resistance in Malappuram had taken up a Facebook post of Kanthapuram A.P. Abubacker Musliyar, an influential Sunni leader, who wrote in support of the immunisation programmes to convince the public.
Crusades go sterile
Figures released by the health department in December last year shows 2.35 lakh children of all age groups were either unimmunized or partially immunised in the district. Of them, 63,809 are below seven and 1.71 lakh between seven and 16 years. However, there is no dearth of immunisation programmes in the district. Three major vaccination drives in Malappuram failed to make the desired impact in several pockets because of the resistance.
During the Mission Indradhanush, an intensive campaign launched with the help of Union health ministry, hardly 6,000 children below five years could be reached with essential vaccines out of the targeted 42,000 unimmunised children. After the first phase of the mission, there were 2,171 children totally unvaccinated. Another drive named Total Immunisation in Malappuram (TIM) launched by the health department with the help of district administration, Childline and local bodies also failed to bring the expected result.
The false and baseless campaign has become a bane for the smooth implementation of the project, said Dr R. Renuka, deputy DMO, Malappuram. The Mission Mukti, which was meant to achieve 100 percent vaccination, has also failed to make an impact due to the same reason. "Some mothers put up resistance citing strange reasons such as the absence of the child's father who are working abroad. Convincing people is a herculean task here. But we have been putting all efforts to get each child vaccinated," Dr Renuka said.
