Around 28 lakh children administered Polio drops in Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 6 (UNI) Around 28 lakh children in the age group of 0-5 years were administered anti-polio drops today as part of the Pulse Polio Campaign.

The Delhi government had made elaborate arrangements for the purpose.

About 9000 Polio booths were established to administer Polio vaccine to the children and around 30,000 workers and employees of the Health Department had been deployed to ensure maximum reach from 0900 hrs to 1600 hrs.

The stalls were set up at major temples, railway stations, ISBTs, public places, including Appu Ghar, Metro Stations, Millennium Park, Zoo and outlets of McDonalds.

Apart from this, a door-to-door week-long survey was also launched under Search and Immunisation Pulse Polio Campaign.

Around 17,000 workers in different teams visited several colonies, including slum and JJ clusters, to make search of left over cases and administer Polio drops to those children.

Delhi had initiated Pulse Polio Immunisation programme in 1994 and launched house-to-house search Immunisation in 1999.

Last year, only two cases of Polio were reported in Delhi against 592 across the country, In 2006, the country reported 676 Polio cases.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit yesterday launched a National Immunisation Drive as part of a special drive across the country to make India a Polio-free nation.

The focus of the campaign is eradication of P-I virus of Polio as its occurrence was dangerous.

P-II virus of Polio was eliminated in 1999 whereas eradication of P-III virus would be focused in due course. Out of around 667 cases of Polio reported in the country last year, 600 were related to P-I virus.

UNI AG SW GC1734