New Delhi, April 6 (IANS): Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda has spoken to chief ministers of 16 states, including high-focus Uttar Pradesh, where Mission Indradhanush, a vaccination drive aimed at covering all children against seven preventable diseases, would be launched.

Besides, Uttar Pradesh, the states include Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra.

"I have spoken to almost all the chief ministers of states where Mission Indradhanush is being implemented. I have also initiated the process to take the Members of Parliament, legislators in assemblies and other public representatives on board to make Mission Indradhanush successful," Nadda told IANS.

"Although our immunization programme is one of the largest in the world, we still need to expand the scope to ensure that no child is left without this protection. It is the right of every child to be fully immunized. In order to make this dream a reality, we have launched Mission Indradhanush," he said.

The project aims to cover all children who are either not vaccinated or partially vaccinated against seven vaccine preventable diseases by 2020.

Nadda said: "Like the "Indradhanush (Rainbow)" with its seven colours, the programme will fully immunize all children against seven vaccine preventable diseases. To begin with, we will cover 201 high-focus districts across 28 states from April 7 to April 14. This is a very significant step towards universal immunization of the children as these 201 districts account for almost 50 percent of partially immunized or un-immunized children in the country."

Monitoring of the mission would be done at three levels. While a team of World Health Organization and partner organizations will do the operational monitoring, a team of UNICEF and partner organizations will do the communication monitoring, official sources said.

Besides this, a team of 201 national-level monitors have been formed to monitor activities in all 201 districts.

The WHO Country Office for India is collating preparedness status for the mission from 28 states and 201 high-focus districts.

Critical information on preparedness, including quality of task forces for immunization, deputation of senior officials to priority areas for monitoring, status of training at state, district and block levels and status of micro-planning activities is being collated by WHO surveillance medical officers and field monitors and information generated is being shared on a weekly basis with the union health ministry, the sources said.