About 16.5 lakh children below five years of age were administered polio drops in 13 districts of Haryana, the first day of three-day sub-national immunisation round of pulse polio 2014-15 on Sunday. A spokesperson of the Haryana Health Department said that these districts include Ambala, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Jhajjar, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Mewat, Palwal, Panchkula, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonipat and Yamuna Nagar.
He said, about 55 per cent of the total targeted children were covered on Sunday at especially set up 10,583 booths in these districts. Those who could not be covered on Monday would be administered polio drops by special teams who would go from home-to-home for next two days. A total of about 26 lakh children are to be covered during this campaign in the State, he added.
In order to smoothly carry out this campaign, these booths were manned by about 42,000 health officials, volunteers, Anganwari Workers and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs).
About 2,100 officers, supervised the activity apart from independent monitors of NPSP-WHO. This activity was preceded by undertaking awareness campaign through print media, radio, TV, drum beating and other such activities.
During this round, special attention has been paid to high risk areas like slums, isolated hutments, brick kilns, floating or migrating population and those living at construction sites so that no child is left uncovered in these areas. About 1,000 mobile teams are also working during the activity to cover all children in underserved and poorly approachable areas, added the spokesperson.
He added that wherever pockets of children remain un-immunised, the poliovirus sustains survival and circulation. With every successive round of pulse polio immunization, the areas of Poliovirus circulation get reduced.