Around 80% Mumbai children given MR vaccine, up to 90% in state

Around 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the school-going children in the city have been vaccinated till date under the measles and rubella (MR) vaccination campaign by the state government.

The MR vaccination campaign started in Maharashtra two months ago has covered around 22 districts so far of which 90 per cent of the children between the age group of nine months old to 15 years of age have been vaccinated.

Dr Santosh Revankar, joint executive health officer from BMC’s public health department, said, “In two months, we have vaccinated around 19,10,380 children across the city in 4,162 schools. While there were few schools in which the parents were not ready for the vaccination programme, we are slowly starting the programme in those schools. After a lot of discussions, many parents have started supporting the campaign. While it is delaying our time-bound programme, we are happy that the campaign is reaching out as many children as possible and successfully.”

In Mumbai, besides public and private schools, the civic body has started approaching the small communities in the city.