The stage is set for the first round of pulse polio campaign on January 19 (Sunday). The Department of Public Health have also drawn up massive plans to cover the children who were not covered on Sunday.
All the 1,581 booths would be manned by four personnel. These would be spilt into two teams and a house-to-house survey would be conducted from Monday in their locality to find out those who had not been covered, S. Somasundaram, Deputy Director of Health Services, told The Hindu here on Saturday. The survey teams would administer vaccine at the houses itself for children who were not covered earlier. Further, a supervisory team had also been constituted at all the 12 blocks under the respective Block Medical Officers to perform random checks.
The vaccination drive was conducted on Saturday itself at ‘hard to reach’ areas such as Anaikatti, Palamalai, Booluvapatti, Valparai, Sholayar Nagar, Mudis Nagar and Mathampalayam.
While the target for Coimbatore was covering 3.30 lakh children, the Deputy Director said that around 4.19 lakh doses have been kept ready to face any contingency.
Further, all vials would have a Vaccine Vial Monitor, a pressure-sensitive strip of paper, which would indicate if the dose was fit for use.
A total of 32 transit booths would be set up at bus stands and railway stations to cover people who are travelling during the campaign. Of these, 26 would be in rural areas with the rest in urban.
Various Rotary Clubs of Coimbatore have also begun conducting awareness programmes in nearly 50 booth centres.
They would also extend logistical assistance for the campaign.
