About 36 lakh children would be immunised against polio in a State-wide mass campaign beginning on Sunday, State immunisation officer Subhash Pandey said here addressing a Press conference on Saturday. While the first phase of the immunisation would be held on Sunday, the second phase would be conducted on February 23.
Apart from other staffs, 80,000 officials of the health department have been engaged for the work which would be carried out in about 23,600 Government centres across the State both in rural and urban area. In the interior and inaccessible area, the Government has set up transit camps at the market, public places, railway stations and deputed transit teams.
Polio also known as poliomyelitis is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system. Children younger than 5-years-old are more likely to contract the virus than people of any other age group. The virus does not have a cure but can be prevented with a vaccination. The children below the age of five years would be administered polio vaccine as parts of the mass immunisation drive, he said.
Its most severe form causes paralysis, difficulty in breathing, and sometimes death. It has been more than 11 years since a report of any polio case has been found in Chhattisgarh. Polio has also been disappeared from many countries in the world, Pandey said. India has been fighting to wipe out polio by launching mass immunisation drive for the last 18 years. About 35,000 were affected by the virus every year especially in northern parts of India prior to 1995, he said.
It was because of the regular immunisation drive, the polio cases witnessed a rapid decline, however, efforts were on to wipe out the virus completely as still there was a risk of the disease re-entering from the neighbouring countries.