Over 7-lakh kids to be covered under polio campaign

KUMARHATTI: Over 7-lakh children in the age group of 0-5 would be administered pulse polio drops during 1st and 2nd rounds of Intensified Pulse Polio Immunization Campaign in state on January 6 and February 10th respectively.

Disclosing this here today a top official of Health Department said that the state has made remarkable progress since the introducing of polio eradication activities in state. He elaborated that the Pulse Polio Immunization Campaign was started in the year 1995 while Accute Flaccid Paralyses (AFP) Surveillance was started in 1997. With this, the state has now poised to completely interrupt transmission of the disease in the very near future, official asserted

He said in the upcoming campaigns, additional doses of OPV would be given to all children in addition to routine OPV vaccine schedule. It would be booth plus house-to-house activity on subsequent 2nd and 3rd days to cover all left out children, he pointed out.

“In rural areas it would be mainly booth based activities on first day and house-to-house activity on subsequent days till all the left out children were administered drops. To cover the children of urban slums, under served and projects sites with special PPI booths and mobile teams were being arranged so that each and every child could be covered.”

About 7.32-lakh eligible children would be administered polio drops through 5855 IPPI booths, besides 93 mobile teams and 86 transit teams to cover remote and inaccessible areas of state, official maintained . About 24461 people would be deputed to carryout the campaign effectively. Each booth would be manned by four persons, two technical persons from Health and Ayurveda Departments and rest two will be deployed from other departments.

The official further said that to make the campaign successful, instructions were being issued separately to all Chief Medical Officers to do the mapping of brick kiln sites, jhuggis and clusters of labourers in industrial areas and project sites, nomadic population and other migratory labour. The mobile teams would be given list of these sites for definite coverage during the campaign. The children of Gaddi and Gujjar tribes would also be given drops at the forest check posts whenever they cross these check posts, the official remarked.

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