For the first time, tollgates on the inner Ring Road here became highway to pulse polio immunisation for children.
The Health Department, in a novel initiative, had set up pulse polio booths at six tollgates along the highway for administering oral polio drops to children in transit on Sunday when the entire district was buzzing with Pulse Polio Immunisation activity.
“What we did today was for the first time. To make sure that travelling children do not miss the polio vaccine, we tried out having polio booths in six tollgates,” S. Senthilkumar, Deputy Director of Health Services, Madurai district, has said.
He told The Hindu after the conclusion of immunisation programme on Sunday evening that 2,611 children were given polio vaccine while they were travelling through the tollgates.
“Our department felt happy to have tried out this method because tollgates are important points for us and children should be covered without fail,” he said.
In Madurai district, the public health authorities had made elaborate arrangements for the first round of pulse polio immunisation.
While a total of 3.05 lakh children were estimated to be covered in Madurai district, the immunisation teams administered polio drops for 2.95 lakh children giving a total coverage of 96.5 per cent.
Dr. Senthilkumar said that the left out children will be covered during door-to-door verification to be undertaken in the next three days.
The district had 1,600 polio immunisation booths across the district.
While Collector L.Subramanian launched the immunisation at Thuvariman near here, Mayor V.V. Rajan Chellappa administered polio drops to children at Sundararajapuram in the city.
Corporation Commissioner Kiran Gurrala and City Health Officer V. Yasodha Mani were among those who participated.
The Deputy Director said that special attention was paid towards nomadic groups in the district and 900 migratory children received the polio dose on Sunday.
The next round of the pulse polio immunisation programme will take place on February 23.
