Measles rubella campaign: coverage among slum children of Udupi municipality area in Karnataka

Abstract

Background: Poor coverage of measles vaccine and shift in the age of incidence of rubella towards adolescents and young adults with low rubella vaccination coverage leads to outbreaks of congenital rubella syndrome and measles in India. Therefore the Government of India has decided to administer measles rubella vaccine to all children from 9 months to 15 years of age in campaign mode to eliminate measles and control rubella. The aims and objectives of the study were to assess the coverage of measles rubella vaccination among the slum children of Udupi Municipality area following the MR campaign.Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted for a period of one month among parents of beneficiary children in 312 households of the study population.Results: Study targeted 350 families in 14 localities of which 312 families were covered consisting 578 children. Amongst them 560 (97%) were immunized and 28 (5%) of them had minor side effects. Fever (89%) was the most common side effect. Among those who were not vaccinated 18 (3%) nearly half of them (44%) were not aware of ongoing campaign and 22% as per physician’s advice.Conclusions: In the present study, coverage of MR vaccine was 97% and 88.1% (275) of the families studied knew about the MR campaign while only 267 (85.6%) actually received the MR vaccine.

Spatial Mapping of Measles-Rubella Campaign in a Rural Area near Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

“…The main reasons for unvaccinated children were rumours and fear of adverse event following vaccination, lack of faith in immunization, unawareness about the campaign and the location for vaccination booth in studies from different settings (Mysore, Udupi, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Bangladesh and Haiti). [21,22,23,24,25,26] which is similar to the observation in the present study. Factors such as child's school attendance, mother's education, education of caregivers, household wealth and religion were significantly associated with the vaccination status of the child in studies from different settings (Tamil Nadu, Bangladesh, Kenya and Haiti) [24,25,26,27].…”

“…In Karnataka state, the coverage of Measles Rubella campaign was 86.4% in Mysore [21] which was similar to the observations of the present study and 97% in Udupi [22]. The possible reason for higher coverage in Udupi can be due to the fact that the immunization coverage and literacy levels in Udupi is higher and additionally the study was conducted one month after the campaign hence the recall bias would be low.…”

Perception of parents of private school students on measles and rubella vaccination campaign in Sambalpur town

“…The finding suggests that school-based campaign and delivery was more successful than the EPI center based campaign and delivery. 7 The non-vaccination rate in our study was 5% and one of the reasons being sickness of the child which was comparable to the finding of another study. 8 In spite of WHO advisory for vaccination in already vaccinated child, physician advice against vaccination was the reason for not vaccinating the child in about 50% of unvaccinated child, which is higher than the 16.7% found by Kumar et all.…”