Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.

Professor and HOD, Department of Community Medicine, Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
Assessment ,Immunization Coverage ,Urban slum area ,

Even today, vaccine preventable diseases continue to take high toll in the form of childhood morbidity and mortality inspite of the fact that a feasible, affordable, cost effective and simple intervention of immune prophylaxis is available. A Community based cross sectional study was carried out in urban slum area for a period of one month. 133 children at and below 5 years of age, belonging to the slum area were selected using convenient sampling techniques. Taking the consent of mothers, immunization cards were seen and data was noted. Children between 1-2 years were examined for BCG scar. Immunization card is looked for other vaccines and Vitamin A. In case the immunization card is missing, mothers of respective children were interviewed. If their data is found unreliable or if they failed to recall, they were taken as not immunized. It has been found in our study that out of 133 study subjects, 61 (45.8%) were completely immunized to their age, 72 (54.2%) were partially immunized. No child was found who was non-immunized. The level of immunization of the child was found to be directly related to socio-economic status of the child, occupation and education of mother. Education of father had no remarkable influence. Type of family to which the child belonged also had no influence. Irrespective of the factors that we associated to the level of immunization of the child, it was found that percentage of partially immunized children was on upper-hand. This emphasizes upon the need for awareness in the community towards complete immunization.

5 , 7 , 2015