Over 3.5 lakh children have been immunised in the first two days of Mission Indradhanush, a massive campaign launched by the government to cover all children who are either unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against seven preventable diseases.
Union Health Ministry said that close to 87,000 pregnant women have also been immunised under the same programme which was launched on April 7 across the country.
"In addition to immunising 3.5 lakh children, we have fully immunised 57.9 thousand children. They were partially immunised so far," a senior health official said.
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Mission 'Indradhanush' started with a "catch-up" campaign from April to July to cover all children up to two years and pregnant women.
Depicting seven colours of the rainbow, Mission Indradhanush will provide vaccination to children against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B.
Focus will be on 201 high-priority districts with largest number of partially-vaccinated and unvaccinated children during the first phase. Under the second phase, 297 more districts will be covered.
Nadda had earlier said that despite the provision of free vaccination for the past more than 30 years, only 65 per cent children in India received all vaccines during their first years of life and the coverage had increased by only four per cent in the last four years - at the rate of 1 per cent per year.
