Claim Of 90% Immunization Coverage By PM Modi Is Misleading

In his address to the nation on June 7, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the government has been successful in bringing the coverage of immunisation up to 90% across the country in comparison to 60% in 2014.

PM said, "In 2014, India had 60% vaccine coverage, we managed to take it past 90% during our term".

He added that through initiatives like Mission Indradhanush (MI) and Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI), the central government expanded the coverage to reach over 90% of children from 60% in just 5-6 years. However, this claim of PM Modi is misleading. The data with 60% vaccination coverage till 2014 is taken from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), while at the same time, 90% of the vaccination data has been taken from the Health Management Information (HMIS) system. The real picture of vaccination is different from what PM Modi claims. In fact, for the last four years, India has failed to touch the 90% mark of routine vaccination. Apart from this, the NFHS-5 report for the year 2019-20 contains data for only 22 states and union territories. Of these, only 17 have been successful in achieving more than 70% vaccination coverage.

Claim:

India reached 90% vaccination coverage during the Modi government.

Fact Check

Releasing the 'National Family Health Survey' report on December 12, 2020, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that compared to the reports of NFHS-4 and NFHS-5, many states and union territories have seen an increase in vaccination. For example, immunisation in 11 out of 22 states/union territories have increased by more than 10%. At the same time, in another 4 states/union territories, this increase is between 5 to 9%. The credit for this should go to the Indradhanush Mission, which started in 2015, Vardhan said.

However, according to the report published by FactChecker, T Sundaramanan, former executive director of the National Health System Resource Center, says, "Minister Harsh Vardhan's statement shows that in reality only the maximum 10% increase has been seen in vaccination after 2014, which is quite low. He further said that this is the reason why the Prime Minister's claim is misleading, and it does not stand the test of facts".

According to the answer given to a question asked during the question/answer session of Lok Sabha on March 19, 2021, only 38 million children across the country were vaccinated in several phases under Mission Indradhanush.

Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Report:

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's (MOHFW) annual report for 2019-20, the vaccination status in the country is assessed in three ways:

1. While releasing the report of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Index 2020-21, online web-based Health Management Information System (HMIS), NITI Aayog quoted HMIS as saying that the coverage of full vaccination in the country was 91.76%. According to HMIS, 16,976,106 children in the age group of 9-11 were vaccinated across the country between 2013-14. However, HMIS gave only the number of vaccinations done in 2013- 14, not the percentage.
2. National Family Health Survey (NFHS ): According to the 2015-16 report of NFHS-4, the figure for full coverage of vaccination in India was 62%. Coverage of DPT-3 was 78.4%, and coverage of the first dose of Measles was 81.1%.
3. Monitoring by Universal Immunization Program: This monitoring is done through individual sessions and community monitoring shows. According to this, the coverage of full vaccination is 83%.

Talking about the credibility of this data, according to KS James, director of the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) said, the NFHS data is reliable, as sources like HMIS only show vaccination data for children aged 9-11 months.

Data showing the different vaccination status can also be seen in the 2015 report released by GAVI. The report was presented in October 2015 at a meeting of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts. The coverage of vaccination taking place in the countries included in GAVI was given in this report. It has been told in this report that India is among the 15 countries where vaccination coverage reached 80 to 89% in 2014. It clearly states the PM is misleading.

What do vaccination data say?

According to NFHS-1, the coverage of national immunization in India was 36% between 1992 and 1993. On the other hand, according to NFHS-2, 42% between 1998 and 1999 and 43.5% between 2005 and 2006 according to NFHS-3. According to NFHS-4, the vaccination was 62% in 2015-16. According to the NHFS-5 2019-20 report, vaccination coverage was 94.9% in only two union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu. The HMIS data shows the vaccine coverage as 100%, compared to 81.7% according to the NFHS.

Even in Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh, the vaccination coverage has crossed 100%, according to HMIS. Explaining the reason behind the source of the data, while talking to FactChecker, T Sundaramanan says HMIS is based on reporting based system. That is, the data is released based on the reports that the government hospitals send. In HMIS, the vaccination rate sometimes exceeds 100%.

Conclusion:

After going through the data published by the National Family Health Survey and the statement given by T Sundaramanan, former executive director of the National Health System Resource Center, only 17 states have been successful in achieving more than 70% vaccination coverage. Also, vaccination coverage of 94.9% is only in two union territories, i.e. Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu. Hence, the statement made by PM Modi is misleading.

Read the full article here at Factchecker.in.

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