CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 16 of 120

Correct — D, full immunisation of children. Mission Indradhanush was launched on 25 December 2014 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with the stated aim of driving full immunisation coverage to 90 per cent and holding it there. The rainbow in the name is the clue to its scope: the seven colours stood for the seven vaccine-preventable diseases the universal programme then covered — diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B. A child is counted as fully immunised only when every due dose has been received, and the mission's method was to find the children who had been missed or only partly covered and complete their schedule, through catch-up rounds in districts with the worst records. That is why the answer has to be the general one. The three other options each name a single disease or vaccine, and a programme organised around one pathogen could not deliver a full schedule.

• (a)reducing child deaths due to pneumonia. — Names one outcome of one vaccine. The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, which protects against pneumonia along with meningitis and sepsis, was introduced into the national schedule in stages and is one component among many — not the object of the mission.
• (b)reducing the impact of rotavirus. — Again a single vaccine. Rotavirus vaccine, against the commonest cause of severe childhood diarrhoea, was added to the universal programme in 2016 — after the mission had already been launched, which by itself rules it out as the mission's purpose.
• (c)elimination of maternal tetanus. — A real and separate goal, and one India achieved — maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination was validated in 2015. Tetanus is among the seven diseases the rainbow stands for, but eliminating one of them is not the same as completing every child's schedule.

India's Universal Immunisation Programme is among the largest in the world, and its weak point was never the supply of vaccines but the completion of schedules. Coverage rose slowly because children were partially immunised — a first dose given, later ones missed. Mission Indradhanush attacked that gap with concentrated rounds in the worst-performing districts and urban pockets. Intensified Mission Indradhanush, launched on 8 October 2017, tightened the method further to reach every child up to two years of age, with a revised target of 90 per cent coverage by December 2018; a second edition ran from December 2019 to March 2020 across 27 states and 652 blocks.

The item is testing breadth against narrowness. Three options are disease-specific and one is programme-wide, and health missions in India are usually named for the outcome rather than for a pathogen. The rainbow image is a useful memory hook, but it should be handled carefully in an examination: it fixes the seven diseases of the original schedule, and the schedule has since grown to include rotavirus, pneumococcal conjugate and measles-rubella vaccines, so the count of colours no longer matches the count of vaccines offered. Anchoring to the exam, the programme's rounds had just been disrupted by the pandemic year, and catch-up drives to recover the children missed during 2020 continued after this paper was set.

• Mission Indradhanush was launched on 25 December 2014 under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• Its aim is full immunisation coverage of children, with a stated target of 90 per cent.
• The seven colours stand for diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B.
• Intensified Mission Indradhanush was launched on 8 October 2017 to reach every child up to two years of age, targeting 90 per cent coverage by December 2018.
• A further edition ran from December 2019 to March 2020 across 27 states and 652 blocks.
• Rotavirus, pneumococcal conjugate and measles-rubella vaccines were added to the national schedule after the mission began.

• Picking a single-disease option because the disease is genuinely part of the programme.
• Assuming the seven colours still match the number of vaccines offered; the schedule has grown since 2014.
• Confusing partial immunisation with full immunisation — the mission exists precisely because of that gap.

As an identify-the-objective item, or as a statements question on the launch year, the target coverage and the diseases covered.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A child is counted as fully immunised under India's Universal Immunisation Programme when

  • (a)at least one dose of any vaccine has been received
  • (b)all the doses due at the child's age have been received
  • (c)the child has been vaccinated against polio alone
  • (d)the child has received vaccines during a campaign round

  Answer(b) all the doses due at the child's age have been received — partial immunisation is exactly the gap Mission Indradhanush was created to close.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Intensified Mission Indradhanush, launched in October 2017, aimed to reach every child up to the age of

  • (a)one year
  • (b)two years
  • (c)five years
  • (d)eight years

  Answer(b) two years — the intensified rounds targeted children up to two years of age, with a coverage goal of 90 per cent by December 2018.