Health and Family Welfare Achievements

Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that the Health department is vaccinating the children against ten diseases including:

• Tuberculosis
• Hepatitis B
• Poliomyelitis
• Diphtheria
• Pertussis
• Tetanus
• Hemophilus influenza B
• Rotavirus diarrhoea
• Measles
• Rubella

Chandigarh, topping the country in immunisation of children, Punjab has covered 89.1 per cent as per NFHS-4 and 95 per cent as per HMIS 2018-19.

Announcing the achievement, Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu expressed satisfaction that the state's flagship immunization programmes had significantly reduced the incidence of major common diseases amongst infants and children. He reiterated that the Health department is vaccinating the children against the ten diseases listed above.

The Minister said that these essential vaccinations had ensured the proper growth of children and also guaranteed the safety of their life from preventable diseases which caused the death of lakhs of children in the country.

Mr. Sidhu stated that children who fail to get all these essential vaccines are more likely to fall sick more frequently and would be malnourished. He noted that it was on official record that the mortality among un-immunised children is higher than the immunised. He highlighted that over the past few years, India has seen a remarkable reduction in the infants and under-5 mortality, whereas Punjab has seen much more reduction as compared to the national achievement.

He also mentioned that immunisation has played a major role in the reduction of major diseases and mortality rate among the children, which is the principal aim of the Punjab government. "During the last decade we have eradicated Polio, introduced a second dose of Measles, introduced the Pentavalent Vaccine, shifted from trivalent to bivalent OPV, introduced the injectable Polio Vaccine, conducted a successful Measles-Rubella (MR) campaign, and introduced the MR vaccine in routine immunisation," he added.

The Minister said that recently the Health department has also introduced an adult dose of the Diphtheria Vaccine (shift from TT to Td) into the immunisation programme in order to combat the emergence of Diphtheria in older age groups. “Continuing with the same process, we have launched the Rotavirus Vaccine in August 2019,” he added.