KL Report
Srinagar
Around 1903297 children’s were given pulse polio drops through 11,224 booths established all over the state in the first phase of the campaign, said minister of state for health Shabir Ahmed Khan on Sunday who launched round of pulse polio immunization campaign by administering polio drops to a new born child and other infants up to the age of five years at government hospital Gandhinagar and Railway station, Jammu.
The Health Minister said 45672 trained personnel have been deployed to man the booths and hold a door-to-door campaign with 284 mobile and 276 transit teams. He said for the purpose, 2555100 pulse polio doses (vaccines) have been kept available at the hospitals and designated booths in both the divisions of the state.
The Minister said that this campaign will continue for another two days by way of house-to-house activity to trace and administer polio drops to the left out children on first day of the round. He said it should be also ensured that the children of snow bounded areas like Guraz, Machal and Karnah, Zanskar,Drass, Numa in Kashmir Division and Padder, Warwan remote and snow bounded areas of Rajouri, Poonch, Bani in Jammu Division.
Shabir said that special attention will be paid to sensitive areas like slums, isolated hutments, brick kilns, floating or migrating population and construction sites so that no child is left uncovered in these areas.
Minister said that “the pulse polio program has been very effective in minimizing the polio cases and added that we have been able to curtail this menace due to constant and excellent efforts of the government”.
Sounding a caution for young parents, the Health Minister advises that, “Once couples become parents, they should be aware about the vaccination schedules and take their respective children to get immunized on time against this deadly disease.”
“The state in fact had not recorded a single polio case since 2010 due to active pulse polio immunization program, high preparedness and monitoring during the National Immunization Days”, he added.
The Minister said that “our large investments in the health sector are yielding results. Health indicators such as infant mortality rate and fertility rate showed continuous decline. The number of institutional deliveries has gone up”. He said that no wild polio case has been reported since January 2011 and World Health Organization has removed India from the list of polio-endemic Countries.
