Karnataka - Bidar   

First day of Pulse Polio drive sees good response

Precaution: Deputy Commissioner Pankajkumar Pandey administering pulse polio drops to an infant in Arya Nagar colony in Gulbarga on Sunday.

BIDAR: A three-day Pulse Polio drive was launched in the city on Sunday. Zilla panchayat president Jayasheela Reddy inaugurated the drive at Naubad Government School in the city.

She urged parents to ensure that children below five years were vaccinated. Speaking to The Hindu here on Sunday, District Health and Family Welfare Officer Pandurang Pujari said, “About 70 per cent of the children have been covered on the first day of the drive. The response from the people to the drive has been good and 100 per cent results will be achieved in the remaining days.The drive was launched at booths at all convenient places and door-to-door vaccination will be taken up as well.”

A press release here on Sunday said that there are around 2,45,761 children below five years in the district.

A total of 1,004 polio booths have been set up and 2,008 personnel have been appointed to vaccinate children. The drive will be monitored by 200 supervisors and 887 teams have been constituted to take up door-to-door vaccination. Ninety-four mobile units have been pressed into service as well, the press release added.

The release added that district nodal officer Dhanyakumar had called upon officials, non-governmental organisations and public to participate in the drive.

Deputy Commissioner Pankajkumar Pandey flagged off the three-day Pulse Polio drive in Gulbarga district by administering Pulse Polio drops to infants at Arya Nagar in Gulbarga city.

Drops were administered in 2,063 booths set up throughout the district. Teams of officials drawn from different departments will pay door-to-door visits to administer drops to children who were missed. The district Health Department has set itself a target of vaccinating more than 5.38 lakh children below five years.

The district administration has also involved schoolchildren in the drive for the first time. Mr. Pandey said that more than 5,000 personnel were involved in the Pulse Polio drive.

On the second and third day more than 2,060 officials in teams would visit every house to ensure that no child was left out. Apart from this, 147 transit teams and 26 mobile teams have also been constituted to administer the drops to children in floating population.

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