GUWAHATI, Jan 2 — The UNICEF refused to cooperate with the police enquiry into the cause of deaths of 23 children after a pulse vitamin A immunisation programme in Assam on November 11, 2001. This was stated by the Inspector General of Police (CID), Sri S P Kar in his report to the Gauhati High Court.
The Gauhati High Court, in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by two advocates Bijon Mahajan and Raju Pradhan, ordered the Director General of Police to enquire into the cause of deaths of 23 children after the immunisation programme and the DGP entrusted Sri Kar to conduct the enquiry.
In his report to the High Court, Sri Kar said that one John Gill Martin of the UNICEF office, Delhi informed him that they would not like to provide information regarding pulse vitamin A immunisation programme unless that is cleared by the Ministry of External Affairs.
Sri Kar revealed that there was no clear cut guidelines to distinguished between sick and healthy child, as a result of which, all the children brought to the immunisation camps were administratered the medicine. He gave detailed case histories of all the 23 children who died after the immunisation programme and observed that majority of them were suffering from existing ailments or malnutrition. He expressed the view that in future, there should be adequate provision for screening of the health of the children before administering medicines in such immunisation programmes. Interestingly, in several cases, postmortem examinations were not carried out.
During the course of the investigation, Sri Kar found that in one particular case, the norms were violated in Sonitpur district. He revealed that a seven month old child Rupan Ora died after administering vitamin A drops, but the child was administered drops in clear violation of the norms as the immunisation programme was for children in the age group of one to five years.
However, Sri Kar expressed the view that the Vitamin-A drops were not contaminated or adulterated and there was no misappropriation of funds in implementing the programme.
In his report to the High Court, the IGP also revealed that the state government had requested the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct an enquiry into the cause of death of children after the Pulse vitamin A immunisation programme, but the central agency expressed its inability to handle the case.