Polio drops to be administered to over 82 lakh children in Guj

Ahmedabad, Mar 10 (UNI) Polio drops would be administered to more than 82 lakh children in Gujarat under the Child Polio Eradication Drive, starting tommorrow.

State Health Minister Ashok Bhatt told reporters that the State administration aimed to cover 82.10 lakh children, below five years of age, under the drive in a period of five years ''There would be 34,000 booths set up by 25 districts and six corporations in the State. As many as 68,000 teams will visit every household on March 12 and 13 to administer polio drops to children,'' Mr Bhatt said.

As many as 1,23,728 workers would be employed for this task.

Under this drive, more than 6,000 private and government vehicles would be used, Mr Bhatt said.

There were 672 child polio cases registered in the country till February 2006, of which Uttar Pradesh had reported 546, Bihar 61, Delhi seven, Jharkhand one, Haryana 19, Maharashtra five, Madhya Pradesh three, Chandigadh one, Asam two, Himachal one, Punjab eight, West Bengal one, Uttaranchal 13 and Gujarat four.

Till January 2003, Gujarat had just three cases of polio among children. In 2005, there was one case and in December 2006 there were four cases registered, of which Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation had one, Dantiwada of Banaskantha district had one, Radhanpur of Patan district had one and Belgam village of Barwala sub-district in Ahmedabad had one case registered.

UNI