Polio drive begins, 14 lakh kids covered

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 16

The three-day sub-national immunisation round of pulse polio 2019-20 was held on Sunday in 13 districts — Ambala, Faridabad, Gurugram, Jhajjar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Mewat, Palwal, Panchkula, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonepat and Yamunanagar.

On the first day, about 14 lakh children under the age of five years were administered polio drops.

A government spokesperson said about 13,000 booths were set up across the state and these were manned by about 50,000 health officials, volunteers, anganwari and ASHA workers.

In the first round, special attention has been paid to high-risk areas such as slums, isolated hutments, brick-kilns, floating and migrating population and construction sites so that no child is left out.

The spokesperson said that on the remaining two days, teams of health officials go door to door to administer polio drops.

Assembly Speaker Kanwar Pal Gurjar started the programme by administering polio drops to children at the Jagadhri Civil Hospital. “On the first day, 78,303 children were administered the polio drops,” said Dr Vijay Dahiya, officiating civil surgeon.