The 60 phase of Pulse Polio programme was held all over the district on Sunday. Children in the 0-5 years age group were administered the oral polio vaccine.
Ministers P. Balaraju and Ganta Srinivasa Rao, Collector Arokia Raj, Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanarayana, senior district officials, GVMC’s Chief Medical Officer Satyanarayana Raju, MLAs, people’s representatives at village level participated in the programme. Several voluntary agencies assisted the district administration in the programme.
The mop-up operations would continue during the next two to three days. Special attention was paid to the migratory population and high risk groups like nomads, brick-kiln workers, fishermen community, construction workers at the sites and agriculture labourers and the settled high-risk group in the district, District Medical and Health Officer R. Syamala said. .
Sunday’s Pulse Polio programme was held in the background of India being declared a polio-free country. No case of polio was registered in the country in the last three years, the last being in West Bengal in 2011. The last case of polio virus recorded in the State was on July 16, 2008 at Etimoga village in East Godavari district. The Pulse Polio campaign commenced in the country in 1995-96.
Additional Director (communicable and non-communicable diseases) and State Surveillance Officer T. Geeta Prasadini, at a press conference she addressed along with Dr. Syamala and Regional Director (health) N.R.V. Somaraju on Saturday said the WHO would conduct a survey soon and declare the country polio-free. However, the Pulse Polio programme would continue in 2015 .
