Authorities turn a blind eye to non-immunised orphans in Malappuram

Kozhikode: The health authorities in Malappuram are sitting idle on the first-of-its-kind vaccination status of the children in 130 orphanages in the district the social justice department painstakingly compiled. They collected the immunisation data after visiting all the orphanages in August and handed them over to the health officials. But sources say they did nothing as the hue and cry over the diphtheria threat vanished. “The biggest problem related to these children was that there wasn’t any data. The SJ department prepared the data with specific details such as migrant children, gender, crime record, etc. But there was no follow-up on the issue as expected,” said an SJ official.

The data shows 2,406 children under the age of 18 are not immunised and that 1,652 had taken complete immunisation, 1,073 partially immunised, 174 did not have any, and the status of 1,159 children was unknown. As the health department considers partially immunised and ‘status not known’ as not immunised, all the 2,406 children fall in this category. Deputy DMO Dr R. Renuka said vaccination activities were going on at the local level.

“Asha and Anganwadi workers and junior public health nurses are roped in for the purpose,” she said. She added that the lack of Asha workers is a cause for worry. Another deputy DMO, Dr Shibu Lal, said the timely intervention had saved the situation from losing more lives. Malappuram has registered the lowest rate of 62 percent immunisation in the state, and this has mainly caused Kerala’s slip of immunisation level from 90 percent to 82 recently.