Bhubaneswar, Oct. 3: Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) programme will be intensified in Ganjam district and the municipal corporation in Odisha's state capital because of comparatively less immunisation coverage in these areas.

Odisha is the only state apart from Kerala, from where only one district and one urban local body have been taken up under the mission.

The programme is being implemented in those areas of the country where immunisation coverage of 0-2 year children and pregnant mothers is less than 70 per cent.

The IMI has been designed as a special national strategy to achieve more than 90 per cent immunisation coverage by 2020.

The target group of the mission is 0-2 years of children and all pregnant women. It envisages sustaining the achievement beyond 2020 through regular routine immunisation programmes.

Presiding over a meeting of officials last week, chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi directed officials to expedite head count survey in all blocks of Ganjam district and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation for identification of the children and pregnant women who missed one or other immunisation out of the total package of full immunisation.

It was found from the review that full package immunisation coverage in 29 districts out of total 30 districts was more than 84 per cent.

Reviewing the progress, the Odisha chief secretary directed the health department officials to ensure 100 per cent immunisation coverage of all children and pregnant women on head count basis in the districts where infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) was high.

The chief secretary also asked the department to expedite the primary health care network programme in all urban local bodies.

As per National Family Health Survey-4 of 2015-16, full immunisation coverage in Odisha was around 79 per cent against the national average of 62 per cent.

The achievement of the state has scaled up to around 84 per cent in the Integrated Child Health and Immunisation Survey of 2016.

Odisha was also among the lead performing states in pulse polio immunisation campaign launched in 1995, hepatitis-B programme implemented in 2011, pentavalent vaccination and Maternal & Neonatal Tetanus Elimination (MNTE) programme in 2015 and injectable polio immunisation drive introduced in 2016.

Odisha also decided to start Missile Rubella campaign from Januar 2018 across the state.