63 per cent children covered under pulse polio in Haryana

Chandigarh, Apr 27 (UNI) About 63 per cent children between the age of 0 to five years have been covered today during the Sub-National Intensified Pulse Polio Immunisation round of 2008-09 in the 12 districts of Haryana including Ambala, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Jhajjar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Mewat, Panchkula, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonepat and Yamunanagar.

About 26 lakh children are to be covered during this campaign in these districts, Haryana Health Minister Mrs Kartar Devi said today that this campaign would continue for another two days by way of house-to-house activity in these 12 districts to trace out and administer polio vaccine to those children who were not brought to the booths set up to administer polio vaccine.

In all, 9900 booths were setup in the State and these were manned by about 39,600 health officials, volunteers, Anganwari Workers, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs). She said that about 2000 officials supervised the campaign. They were in addition to the Nodal Officers from the State headquarters and Independent Monitors of PGIMS Rohtak.

The Minister said that this activity was preceded by undertaking awareness campaign through print media, radio, TV and other intensive education activities. She said that the left out children would be administered polio vaccine drops on April 28 and 29 through house-to-house teams.

During this round, special attention is being paid to slums, far-flung areas, isolated hutments, brick kilns and floating or migratory population. Wherever, pockets of children remain un-immunized, the polio virus sustains survives and gets circulated.

With every successive round of Pulse Polio Immunisation, the areas of Poliovirus circulation get reduced, she added.

UNI JN MIR DB2018