A State Steering Committee meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Donald P Wahlang was held on Tuesday along with Directors and officials from the Health & Family Welfare Department, National Health Mission, Social Welfare, Education, Housing, Civil Defence, Urban Affairs, Sports and Youth Affairs, Labour, Mining and Geology and development partners WHO, UNICEF, UNDP and JSI.
The committee was presented with the overall immunisation coverage and status of Meghalaya, which currently stands at 89 percent full immunisation coverage.
The main objective of the meeting was to find ways and interventions on how to reach the unreached through the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 5.0, which is a three-month long immunisation catch-up campaign.
The campaign is scheduled to be conducted in three rounds on August 7-12, September 11-16 and October 9-14, 2023.
Immunisation session sites will be set up in identified locations with low coverage for children from 0-5 years as well as pregnant women.
With this campaign it is envisaged that Measles-Rubella Elimination target will be achieved by ensuring MR vaccination coverage of more than 95 percent by December 2023. Through IMI 5.0, U-Win a digital platform to register and track beneficiaries will be rolled out across India and Meghalaya as well.
In addition, UNICEF in collaboration with their partners, organised a three-day Behavioural Science Intervention Design Workshop, which aimed to design effective interventions to improve Routine Immunisation (RI) rates in Meghalaya, using insights from Behavioural Science (BI) and Human-Centered Design (HCD).
The workshop aimed to translate research findings into practical, evidence-based interventions to improve RI rates.