41.70 lakh to be covered under Japanese Encephalitis vaccination campaign in Assam

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Around 41.70 lakh people in the 15-65 age group will be covered under state-wide adult vaccination for Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in Assam, a senior official of national health Mission (NHM) here said.

The Centre has allotted 41.70350 doses to Assam this year to cover 92 development blocks under18 districts, joint director of health service Dr Harpal Singh Suri said.

The statewide campaign was formally launched by Assam health minister Keshab Mahanta in a function at Sonapur District Hospital in the outskirts of Guwahati on October 12.

Earlier, the vaccine was available for children of the 1-14 year age group under the Universal Vaccination Programme of the Union government.

Notably, the adult JE vaccine was introduced in the state in 2006.

Since the JE takes an outbreak form from March to September each year, the campaign has been launched from October.

The programme will cover Baksa, Barpeta, Chirang, Cachar, Darrang, Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, Golaghat, Jorhat, Kamrup, Kamrup Metro, Lakhimpur, Morigaon and Nagaon district, Dr Suri said.

However, a special vaccination drive will be taken out for Goaaalpara and Kokrajhar districts, where the JE vaccination had been done partially in 2020, Dr Suri said.

"We have covered 87.7 per cent vaccination in Goalpara, 50.21 per cent vaccination in Kokrajhar and 29 per cent vaccination in South Salmara in 2020. But the drive was stopped due to first wave of Covid-19 pandemic in that year," he said.

This year's drive will cover the people who have been left over in the previous drives, he also said.

39 people were killed in the deadly Japanese Encephalitis in the state till September this year, while a total of 212 people have been afflicted in it.

This year, most of the JE cases were reported from Dhemaji district with four deaths and 26 afflicted, followed by Lakhimpur with three deaths and 16 afflicted, Sivasagar two deaths and 16 afflicted and Tinsukia two deaths and 16 afflicted.

In 2020, most of the JE cases were reported from DEarrang, Barpeta and Morigaon districts, he said.

In 2019, 161 people were killed in the JE, the highest since 2014. A total of 642 people were afflicted in the disease in 2019.

In 2015, in Assam, the number of deaths due to Japanese Encephalitis stood at 135, in 2016 the number came down to 92 and further decreased to 87 in 2017. In 2018 the state saw 94 deaths due to the vector-borne disease which is spread by the culex mosquito.

Also Read: Japanese Encephalitis vaccination begins for 15-65-year age group in Kamrup (M)

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