It has approved an outlay of Rs 332.70 crores toward the cost of the vaccine which provides protection against five diseases -- Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza B.
The decision was taken at the 8th meeting of the Mission Sterring Group of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) which also decided to relax the norms for providing mobile medical units (MMU) in each district under NRHM and approved providing up to 5 MMUs per district, against one MMU now.
This will ensure that health care services are easily accessible even in remote areas. All MMUs funded under NRHM will have a universal name of "Rashtriya Mobile Medical Unit" and a common colour.
The Steering group also approved an additional requirement of Rs 4.75 crore from domestic budget for research as well as strengthening supervision for introduction of pentavalent vaccine.
The vaccine had been introduced on a pilot basis in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in mid December 2011.
The initial response of the community has been very encouraging and more than one lakh children have been successfully vaccinated within the first month, the health Ministry claimed.
After acknowledging the significance of Haemophilus influenzae b (Hib) vaccination, a decision was taken to continue inclusion of Haemophilus influenzae b (Hib) vaccines in Universal Immunization Program as liquid pentavalent vaccine (DPT+ Hep B+ Hib) in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
The meeting was chaired by Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Women & Child Development Krishna Tirath, Member Planning Commission Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare S Gandhiselvan were among those who attended the meeting, besides Secretary Health & Family Welfare PK Pradhan and Secretary AYUSH Anil Kumar. MORE PTI SKC
