HEALTH

Pulse Polio
Over 5.5 lakh children targeted for vaccination
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, May 16
The district administration has made a fervent appeal to all government departments, NGOs, social and religious bodies, educational and health institutions and community leaders to actively cooperate with the health department so as to make the forthcoming pulse polio drive in the district on May 20 a success and ensure cent per cent coverage of eligible children.

Presiding over a meeting of different departments here on Monday, additional deputy commissioner Priyank Bharti reviewed the preparedness and necessary arrangements for vaccination of more than 5.5 lakh children in the age group of 0-5 years against the crippling disease.

He said the education department had been directed to ask all the school heads in the district to make announcement about the polio drive in the district on May 20 every day in the prayer meetings so that awareness was created among the students and every eligible child was brought to the nearest polio booth for immunisation.

The meeting was attended by representatives of all medical, dental and homoeopathic colleges, major hospitals and other voluntary organisations, who assured to provide volunteers for some 2,155 polio booths to be set up in the city, other towns and villages in the district, and also for the door to door survey for vaccination of the left out children on May 21 and 22.

Civil surgeon Dr S.P. Sharma, while giving details of the necessary arrangements made for the polio campaign, sought the cooperation of the anganwari workers in creating awareness among the people, particularly the rural population and slum areas.

Dr Kanwaljit Singh, WHO coordinator for the pulse polio campaign, dwelt upon the crippling effects of polio and the need for prevention against this disease.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Kuldip Kaur Sahni said besides putting up 2,155 booths in the district, 75 transit teams had been formed that would cover the children on railway stations and bus stands in addition to over 50 mobile teams, which would focus on brick-kilns, construction sites, slums and other public places.

The volunteers manning the polio booths and the mobile teams would seek the assistance of the traffic police and the transport department to stop the buses at several points like Jalandhar bypass, Samrala Chowk, Sherpur and the Ferozepur Road to vaccinate the travelling children, she added.

Dr Sahni said a network of cold chains had been set up to maintain proper temperature of the vaccine and the authorities of the electricity board had been requested not to impose power cuts from May 20 to 22.

156 women tested for bone density
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, May 16
A new menopausal clinic was inaugurated at the Gynaecology Department of the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMCH), here, on Tuesday.

On this occasion, free Bone Mass Density (BMD) test in association with Kinedex Health Care was conducted to check the calcium levels among visiting women.

Inaugurating the clinic, Dr John Abraham, the acting director of the hospital, observed that menopausal clinic would benefit women who are above 40-years of age, through counselling, management and treatment.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Mary Abraham, head of the Department of Gynaecology, said the clinic would be functional on every Wednesday from 3 pm to 5 pm.

As many as 156 women were tested for BMD and later were counselled. The same exercise of providing free BMD test facilities and counselling would be repeated on May 29, informed Dr Mary.