RAWALPINDI, Nov 10: The district health department on Monday launched a crash programme for measles vaccination targeting children, who missed out measles vaccination while getting the routine Expanded Programme for Immunization (EPI) coverage.

It is estimated that there are about 119,427 infants below the age of one in the district, out of which 35,824 have not been administered measles vaccination. Such children would be targeted in the crash programme.

A survey conducted recently by Unicef in the district revealed that the routine EPI coverage stood at 92 per cent, however, measles vaccination was at about 80 per cent.

Talking to this reporter, District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Shoaib Khan said it was in view of these circumstances and the approaching season when the measles incidence normally increased that the district health department had decided to embark on this crash programme.

The parents, it has been observed, are generally lax about completing their children’s vaccination. Dr Khan said the parents at the beginning were quite keen about immunization, but they subsequently tend to lose interest as the child grew.

“Since the measles vaccination is done when the infant is 10 months old, the parents mostly miss it,” he added. The measles programme has been particularly a failure.

The DHO said measles vaccination was included in the third round of the crash EPI drive launched earlier this year, but contrary to the great success of the earlier two rounds the third one failed.

Dr Khan believed that mothers were not ready to get their children administered so many injections in the third round.

The other indicator before the health department about the poor coverage of measles vaccine was the vaccination defaulter list prepared by the grass-root health care institutions.

Most of the defaulters, the DHO said, were measles vaccination cases.

The measles vaccination crash programme would be held from house to house.

The district health department, while preparing for the measles vaccination drive, was faced with the problem of manpower shortage. About 2,200 trained personnel were required. This thing was sorted out by involving lady health workers, who were then trained for this purpose.