Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy administered polio drops to children at the polio booth in Siripuram junction in the city on Sunday. The second round of Pulse polio immunisation campaign was launched at 3,000 polio booths in the district. The immunisation programme is being implemented in the district for three days and in the city for four days. Focus is more on tribal areas, nomadic tribes and on migrating construction and brick workers etc as these targeted sections had been found as possible missing links in the campaign against polio.
The campaign will continue up to April 18. The total number of children up to 5 years of age is 4.47 lakh out of whom 2.35 lakh were from rural areas and 1.36 lakh from urban areas.
At Nakkapalli
The Chief Minister administered polio drops to two infants at Nakkapalli. Mr. Reddy took part in the Pulse polio programme after launching the sixth phase of Praja Patham at Nakkapalli Zilla Parishad School.
District health officials said this time they would be focusing Pulse polio immunisation in the rural areas. Rotary Club Visakha Valley participated in Pulse Polio immunisation programme at Dondaparty, Subbalakshminagar, Chakala veedhi, Jaganadhapuram, Vivekananda hospital, Pardesamma library, Railway new colony areas. Drops were administered to children below 5 years of age. Visakha Valley Rotary Club secretary A. J. Solomon said that population explosion, illiteracy, unhygienic conditions and drinking of polluted water were some of the factors responsible for birth of polio virus.