While the original name Mission India Foundation was appealing, we decided to change the name to Mother & Infant Foundation to bring the name of the organization in tune with the work we are doing,ie, Maternal and Child Health. The new name “Mother & Infant Foundation” aptly conveys that.

While we have changed the name, our Mission continues to be the same: providing Immunizations for kids. The core idea remains the same: Creating awareness about vaccines in rural areas of India and providing them to children.

January 24 2012: Mission India Foundation, a US based charity organization launched the second phase of MMR vaccination program in Naranul, Haryana (about 150 KM from New Delhi). Mission India Foundation initially had launched its first phase of MMR vaccination program in 2010. During the first phase of campaign MIF administered 4000 MMR vaccines to the kids in and around Narnaul.

MIF has a target to immunize 2000 children with this MMR vaccination. Under the scheme, MIF issues Immunization Cards which will reach the targeted children living in the underprivileged areas. The vaccine is given at its Vaccine Center located at Dr Singhal’s Nursing Home in Narnaul. The vaccines are administered by MIF’s trained ANM under the guidance of a Doctor. The current lot of MMR vaccines have been donated by Serum Institute of India and these all vaccines will be provided free of cost to the kids aged 1 to 8 years.

On the day of the launch 69 kids were vaccinated with MMR vaccine.

Mission India Foundation graciously thanks Serum Institute of India for donating 2000 doses of MMR Vaccine in the first week of January 2012. MIF provides free vaccines to children in rural parts of India. We focus on providing those vaccines that are not covered in the Government-administered Universal Immunization Program (UIP).  MMR vaccine is one such example. We would also like to express our words of appreciation for Dr. Kavita Singh, who served as a honorary Board Member at MIF last year. She initiated the contact with Serum Institute and helped the charity secure the donation of vaccines.

Accordingly Mission India Foundation is going to launch its second phase of MMR vaccination from 24^th January, 2012. Mission India Foundation initially had launched its first phase of MMR vaccination program in 2010. During the first phase of campaign MIF administered 4000 MMR vaccines to the kids in and around Narnaul.

Pune-based Serum Institute of India is a major vaccine manufacturer on a global level. Mission India Foundation hopes that the company would continue to partner with such non profits to continue the mission of reaching the kids with life-saving vaccines in remote parts of India.

Dear Patrons and Friends of Mission India Foundation:

As the year 2011 draws to a close, we would like to thank you on behalf of thousands of children and their families in India whose live you have improved through your support of the Mission India Foundation.

Mission India Foundation is a nonprofit that was founded by doctors of Indian origin in Chicago that provides vaccines recommended by WHO and Indian Academy of Pediatrics but not covered through the government to the underprivileged children. In other words, we focus on Newer and Underutilized Vaccines, like Hepatitis B, MMR, Typhoid vaccines,etc. It fulfills its mission through a free vaccination center in a small town Narnaul, in Haryana. This free vaccination center is based out of a nursing home which has given us space at no cost and also provides medical attention should there be any adverse event. The project is ably executed by a Program Coordinator and trained ANMs. We are also switching to electronic data base collection of the immunized kids in the initial weeks of 2012. Since inception, we have administered around 11500 plus doses with a target of additional 16000 doses for the year 2012.

Year 2011 has been very encouraging for us. We not only received patronage from valuable individual donor like you, our efforts got a great boost from corporate sponsorship. In addition, we were able to rope in a few India-based vaccine manufacturers who donated us several thousand doses of vaccines free of cost. A list of such donors includes:

Quest Software (www.quest.com)

Slalom Consulting (www.Slalom.com)

IBM (grant received via an employee)

EPICS (a non profit)

Vaccine –manufacturers include:

Biological E (Hepatitis B Vaccine)

Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL):  Typhoid Vaccine

Shantha Biotech ( Hepatitis B vaccine)

This has enabled us to make these doses available free of cost to children in rural parts of India.

Mission India Foundation sincerely thanks you for your patronage for the cause of childhood vaccination. We look forward to our work together in the year 2012.

From everyone at the Mission India Foundation, we wish you a very joyous and healthy New Year 2012.

(Report prepared by Santanu Sarma, Program Coordinator at Mission India Foundation)

Thus, at Mission India Foundation we continue to do what is closer to our heart: Provide shots to children and make a difference.

The Charity, Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment Act (CARE) passed by Congress in 2003 enhances the value of charitable contributions to the taxpayer under law.

Under this law, taxpayers can subtract all charitable contributions from their taxable income, even if they do not itemize their taxes. The second provision, for itemized returns, gives taxpayers a tax credit rather than a tax deduction, which results in increased savings. Here’s an illustration of how this works:

I had decided to spend my last day at the Narnaul, the site of the vaccination center of the Mission India Foundation, also the nonprofit that I’ve been working very actively for the past 18 months.

Delhi is also a new home of my brother who has been relocating to places like a magician’s “quick change cloths” tricks.  On a chilly, foggy (even by Chicago standard since his 17^th floor apartment doesn’t have a heater) Friday morning, I embarked on a journey from the Gurgaon, which is 126 kms away from the Narnaul. On a previous night, my better sense had prevailed and I had accepted an offer from my brother to supply me chauffer driven car, rather than the self-driving on the Delhi’s congested road.

I left Delhi at 7:30 AM, expecting to make it to Narnaul in two hours but it turned out to be 3 plus hours thanks to the bumpy roads and people in general turning “highway” into “myway”. Gosh – how many times I screamed, swore at the driver, only to be told by the driver – Shankar that he is hardly at his best in scaring me! Right at that moment, I realized, why PS3 or Xbox aren’t so popular in India, because people get so much adrenaline rush just by driving on roads.. Ok, enough about THE roads..

Upon reaching Narnaul, I had a little trouble finding a Dr. Singhal clinic, a clinic that has graciously allowed us (MIF) to run our operations in a separate room there. Even so much they are even footing our electrical bills. Thank you Dr. Singhal!

I reached clinic at 10:30ish and was immediately greeted by Neeraj Yadav -  operation coordinator, Santanu Sarma – Program Coordinator, Sushma and Vijaya – ANM.   My agenda was to put the faces next to their names that I’ve been hearing past many months and introduce myself as well.   The focus of discussions in the morning was the open source medical record system that we are beta testing – OpenEMR – http://www.oemr.org. We are now going hi-tech and hosting this application on the Amazon cloud. I was happy to learn that Indian staff is adapting to this new system and are coming up with the recommendations to improve the efficiency in data entry in the existing processes.  We made few changes on the fly but major concern still remains to be addressed – the Internet speed… As I witnessed through the mobile data card they are using, the system at times choked, that could be because of 1) the fact that I am hosting the application on Amazon Micro instance – 512 MB, slower CPU 2) cloud instance is in northern American hemisphere and 3) internet connection of India.

At around 11:30, a family of 7 kids walked in. The kids ranged from 2 yrs. to 12 years and I took this opportunity to interact with the parent while staff got busy with the screening and registration processes..  Several things jumped out on me.  The family had no last name… Seriously how is this possible? Blame goes to the caste system, lower caste families have stopped using their last name, since it can give away their caste status and can lead to the discrimination. To us, it poses some serious threats to our ability to accurately register the kids without last name. To make this problem worse, many families don’t even remember the birthdates of their kids.  I also learnt from the family that none of the kids were ever vaccinated. Seriously 12 yrs. kid has never been vaccinated? On the contrary, I just checked my 3 years old’s records, he has been poked the needles 24 times already.

Soon after the lunch, another parent brings in two kids to the clinic. Same story – 5 yrs old and 12 yrs old girl were never ever vaccinated. I asked the father, if he understood the importance of vaccination. To which – he said he did but he worked all seven days and never had a time to bring in the kids to the clinic.

In rural part of the India, where we are running our operations, there are lots of myths when it comes to the topic of vaccinations… In a typical community outreach program, when staff visits nearby villages and meet the community to spread the words about the importance of the vaccines and “free vaccination programs”, they are often responded with the answers such as “ we don’t require vaccinations since we feed our kids well and they are healthy”, “free vaccinations really? What’s in it for you”?

Despite the many adversities that team is facing in India, the team is doing commendable job by staying connected with the community, raising awareness and eradicating diseases before an innocent kid becomes victims of parent’s negligent or lack of resources.

I left Narnaul at around 2ish with the sense of accomplishment, with each shot delivered, my hope and faith is restored in humanity and justified my own existence on this very planet as global citizen.

India -like other low-middle income countries- has a huge deficit in immunizations. On a national level, vaccination rates for kids in age 12-23 months are 61 %. According to NHFS III (2007) less than 44 % of kids actually get full set of 6 vaccines. Thus, despite government’s best efforts, vaccination rates have not improved in the last decade (in 1992, percentage of fully immunized kids was 42 %). More than 90 % vaccine administration happens via Federal and State government health facilities spread across towns and villages, with private healthcare sector accounting for only 10 % of vaccine administrations.

Unlike in West, where there is a strong anti-vaccine lobby, in a developing country like India, low vaccination rates are due to lack of health and vaccine awareness. In a UNICEF survey 2009, 55 % of parents or guardians of kids with no or partial  immunization stated ‘not knowing about vaccines’ or ‘did not feel need’ as the reasons. Other prominent reasons that leaped out were: time not convenient, vaccine not available (at govt facility), wrong advice by someone.

Medical experts recommend that in a community, vaccination rates should be minimum 80 % so as to give benefit to even the unprotected by a phenomenon called “Herd Immunity” or “Herd Effect”. In USA, national average of immunization rates for majority of vaccines is 90-94 %. In India, it is in sixties.

We at Mission India Foundation are of the firm opinion that by creating health awareness about the vaccines and providing them to the kids as many as we can reach, we are right at target! After all, when we give an inoculation to a child, we reap the dividend (prevention from disease) later on! Is this not a safe investment?

This data is from World Bank:  World Development Indicators (www.data.worldbank.org)

The fact remains that there is an unmet need in the field of immunization that we have to fulfill. There are many reasons for the huge vaccine deficit in India: Lack of awareness about importance of vaccines in the public, insufficient allocation of budget for the vaccines, and lack of political will. Mission India Foundation is making concerted efforts to increase pubic awareness about the vaccines and making vaccines available in remote parts of India. Through our Vaccine Centers, we provide valuabe vaccines to kids.

Here is the link to Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze’s essay “Putting Growth in its Place” published in Outlook India magazine, November 2011: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278843

November 12 is World Pneumonia Day. Mission India Foundation considers it as an opportune day to highlight the problem that exists in kids and adults and how vaccines can save lives.

Pneumonia, an inflammation or infection of the lungs most commonly caused by a bacteria or virus, is the world’s most important cause of child death.  It claims one young life every 20 seconds; that’s more than 1.5 million children who die from pneumonia each year. That totals more than all cases of AIDS, Malaria and Measles combined.  In the US, it is the fifth leading cause of death when combined with the flu making it the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death. In 2001, the Centers for Disease Control upon advice from its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recommended that the Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine be administered to every infant and young child in the US. According to current US vaccination schedules, all children should receive four doses, between 2 months to one year and fifteen months of age.

However, 98% of all childhood deaths from pneumonia occur in developing nations, many of whom don’t have access to this valuable vaccine.  More than one million young lives can be saved annually with vaccines and antibiotics, reducing indoor air pollution and through breastfeeding for the first six months of life.

With adequate use of antibiotics and vaccines like Pneumococcal vaccine, the incidence of pneumonia can be reduced by 49 %.

Find out more about how you can help fight pneumonia by visiting www.worldpneumoniaday.org.

Jharkhand, India

A boy suffering from pneumonia shivers underneath a blanket while his parents work on a farm in Jharkhand, India.

Photographer’s Note: This is a close portrait of a boy suffering from pneumonia. His nose is running and he has gone under a blanket shivering. I noticed him waiting in a corner of an agricultural farm house while his parents, both of them daily wage laborers, were busy in the farm operation. When I asked for consent to photograph the child, they gladly accepted on condition that I would bring them a copy of the child’s photo. I did not realize until then that I was going to take a photograph of a pneumonia patient for the first time in my life. When I went close to the child for an intimate portrait, I discovered that he was ill. While I was taking photographs, his parents went on urging him for a smile. He did not break a single one. I came to know that he was suffering from pneumonia and the doctor in a local health centre had advised the parents to take him to the nearby town for treatment. This photo is yet another example of the clear absence of health care providers in the interior rural areas.

© 2008 Somenath Mukhopadhyay, Courtesy of Photoshare