SHILLONG: The Measles-Rubella (MR) vaccination campaign in the East Khasi Hills district has not picked up pace even after five months and  the Health department has not achieved the target the 95 per cent coverage even as the doctors are making efforts to allay rumours pertaining to the immunization.

Addressing the Press on Monday, nodal officer, Robert Marak said the other 10 districts of Meghalaya have achieved the 95 per cent coverage target while that of East Khasi Hills District coverage stands at 79 per cent with a target to immunize 2.85 lakhs of children.

The MR campaign was started on October 1, 2018 and the target that time was 11.5 lakhs  children in the age group of  9 months to 15 years. He said, “Unless, we achieve the 95 per cent coverage target, the exercise of MR campaign will be futile and we will not be able to stop the virus transmission.”

He said there were many pockets of refusal in the community due to personal, religious and social beliefs and made a fervent appeal to parents  to get their children immunized.

“We need to achieve herd immunity and to achieve herd immunity  we need 95 per cent of the children in this target age group to be vaccinated,” he said.

Meanwhile, WHO consultant N. Roy said in 2018, a total of 18, 108 cases were reported in India and Meghalaya reported about 326 cases and the majority  of them were from East Khasi Hills. In 2019, there were 18 cases with 6 cases from East Khasi Hills  while West and East Jaintia Hills have 7 cases together.

“It is evident that measles is still occurring. There is an increase in measles cases globally also,” he said.