A three-week-long measles-rubella vaccination camp, targeting 6,50,000 children, began in Madurai district on Monday.
Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao and Corporation Commissioner Sandeep Nanduri inaugurated the programme for school children at Kakkaipadiniyar Corporation Girls Higher Secondary School in the morning.
Health department officials said that village health nurses, city health nurses, anganwadi workers, officials from Education department and volunteers from non-governmental organisations were deployed in the programme, which is intended to cover children in 2,168 schools and 2,001 anganwadi centres. The administration is also planning to cover the children who are not in school in the vaccination programme for all children aged between 9 months and 15 years. A press statement issued by Madurai Corporation said that 12,153 school children studying in Corporation schools were administered the vaccine injection on the first day. It added that no adverse reaction was reported anywhere.
Health department had earlier made an appeal to all parents to get their children vaccinated and not to believe in false information circulated in social media regarding ‘side effects’ of the vaccine.
