Haryana Health Minister, Anil Vij on Sunday said that about 23 lakh children between the ages of 0 to 5 years were covered under the Sub-National Intensified Pulse Polio Immunisation (IPPI) round in all the districts of Haryana, on the first day of the three-day campaign.
He said that this campaign would continue for another two days by way of house-to-house activity to trace and administer polio drops to the left out children on booth.
The children who were administered the pulse polio drops on the first day constituted about 57 per cent of the targeted 40 lakh children to be covered during the three-day campaign, said the Minister.
He said that a total of 16,110 booths were setup in the state and these were manned by approximately 67,000 officials of Health Department, Anganwadi Workers, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and volunteers, to smoothly carry out this campaign. About 3,300 officers or officials supervised the activity apart from Independent Monitors of NPSP-WHO.
This activity was preceded by undertaking awareness campaign through print media, Radio, TV, miking, drum beating and other IEC activities.
During this round, special attention has been paid to high risk areas like slums, isolated hutments, brick kilns, floating or migrating population and construction sites so that no child is left uncovered in these areas. About 1,500 mobile teams will be working during the activity to cover all children in underserved and poorly approachable areas, said Vij.
Wherever, pockets of children remain un-immunized, the poliovirus sustains survival and circulation.
With every successive round of Pulse Polio Immunization, the areas of poliovirus circulation get reduced, added he.