The government has been providing free vaccines to children up to two years of age, but hundreds of them in some remote village development committees (VDC) such as Rajpur, Koilibas, Bela and Purandhara about 50 km from district headquarters Ghorahi are not getting the vaccines. [break]
Some of the villages in Rajpur, the largest VDC in the district, are more than a day´s walk from the VDC health post. “Neither can they come to the health post for immunization nor can we reach out to them due to the dangerous jungle route,” says supervisor of Dang District Public Health Office Madhusudan Khadka. The office puts the number of children in these VDCs missing out on the vaccines at around 1,500.
There was an encouraging turnout for the one-time vaccines for BCG and measles but they missed out on DPT and Hepatitis B vaccines and polio drops that need to be taken thrice at intervals of one month. Last year two children in Gangaparaspur and Sonpur were found to be suffering from early paralysis and their stool reports are yet to be obtained from Thailand.
While 98% of children received the BCG vaccine in fiscal year 2063/64, the figure came down to 87% in 2064/65 and to only 80% in the first eight months of 2065/66. Similarly, 95% received the DPT vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus in 2063/64, but this came down to 91% in 2064/65 and 80% in the first eight months of this fiscal year.
Khadka attributes the drop in vaccination rate to the greater focus on measles and lack of syringes for BCG and DPT.
The District Public Health Office has initiated a special four-month program from this month to reach out to children and more than 125 expecting women deprived of tetanus inoculation in Rajpur and Purandhara VDCs.
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