71.6% Ropar schools fail to get medicines

Arun Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ropar, August 10

The National Deworming Day  (NDD) suffered a setback in the district as no medicine could be distributed in majority of schools, on Friday. The authorities said they did not get the medicine to be administered to children till yesterday evening.

The objective of NDD is to de-worm all pre-school and schoolchildren between the ages of one and 19 years through the platform of government, government aided and private schools and anganwadi centers in order to improve their overall health.  

According to guidelines issued by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare all states and Union Territories are required to procure albendazole drug timely and ensure its availability att he block level. 

However, inquiries revealed that none of the schools in three of the four sub-divisions of Ropar, Anandpur Sahib, Chamkaur Sahib and Nangal got supply of medicine. District Education officer Dinesh Kumar confirmed that out of 556 schools in district, merely 158 schools (28.4 per cent) in Ropar subdivision received the medicine.

This means 71.6 per cent of schools did not receive the medicine.

Ropar Civil Surgeon Dr Harinder Kaur said the remaining children would be covered by August 17