The pulse polio drive was hit by sudden rains on Sunday as there were fewer turnouts for the vaccination. According to reports, many booths witnessed extremely low turnout while at many places, they were shut before time due to heavy rains in afternoon.
Booths at places like bus stops, railway stations and at other open areas were forced to shut down before time whereas; many places witnessed a huge influx of people in the afternoon when the rain had stopped. Dr Rajiv Yadav, immunization officer said that more than 6.54 lakh children were targeted to be immunized as part of the National Immunization Day (NID) but hardly 15% of the kids came to booths on Booth Day. "The coverage was less as compared to the last drive when nearly 1.70 lakh children were given the polio dose on Booth Day. It could be because of the rain," he said. Children below five years of age were administered the trivalent vaccine which protects them against all the three strains of the polio virus. The official said that the low turnout has increased the work of polio teams who will have to now cover more children during the door-to-door campaign to be carried out from Monday to Saturday.
Source : TOI , 17th June 2013
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