This Sunday is Pulse Polio Day : Kanpur

The district health department will organise Polio Day on June 16 and around 6.71 lakh kids, under the age of five years, will be administered pulse polio drops on the booth day.

The pulse polio campaign will continue for five more days in the form of door-to-door drive for the dropout kids. Under this drive, the kids will be administered bi-valent polio vaccine.

As per the district health department, the target this time is to cover nearly 6,71,536 children under the age of 5 years under the pulse polio drive. After the first booth day on Sunday, the door-to-door polio drive will continue from June 17 to 22.

The children will be administered polio drops on the booth day from 8 am to 4 pm. Apart from the schools in the localities, the polio booths will also be set-up at bus-stop, railway station and other public places as well. As many as 2,134 booths will be set-up in the city to make the polio vaccines accessible to maximum number of children.

According to the health department officials, the polio vaccine should be given to all children including those who have been already given the initial dose.

Dr Rajiv Yadav, Immunisation officer informed that this time the pulse polio immunisation campaign is under the strict vigil by the government. This is the reason why the last day of the programme will be dedicated to the back-up activity, so that every child is administered the polio drops.

The official also informed that out of the all the booths, nearly 400 have been categorised as high risk zones and they will be monitored strictly since they are located in slum areas as well as in the interior city areas.

Banners, urging all to get their children administered polio drops, have been put up to create mass awareness in different parts of the city. Besides, the health staff and primary school teachers have also been urged to volunteer for the programme.

Dr RP Yadav, chief medical officer of the district informed a total of 121 transit teams were constituted for the pulse polio mission and 56 mobile teams were also made a part of the mission. Around hundreds of health workers will take part in the door-to-door campaign to administer polio drops to each child, added D Yadav.


Source : TOI , 13th June 2013