Municipal Administration and Minority Affairs Minister, Qamarul Islam inaugurated the four-day second-round intensive pulse polio programme by administering the pulse polio drops to children at the specially established booth at Mecca Colony in Kalaburagi on Sunday.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Islam said that all out effort should be made to achieve cent per cent of the target fixed for administering the pulse polio drops to all children to keep the crippling disease away. Although India has been declared as polio-free country by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the country needs to be cautious about the re-appearance of the disease.
Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat, Anirudh Shravan, District Health and Family welfare officer, Mohammad Zakir Ansari and other senior officials were present at the inauguration. There has been a general dissatisfaction over the failure of the officials involved in the pulse polio drive to achieve cent per cent target fixed during the first-round of pulse polio drive taken up from January 18 to 21. The officials could achieve only 98.6 per cent coverage.
Like in the previous rounds on the first day on Sunday, the pulse polio drops were administered to the children brought to the specially established booths throughout the district and for the next three days from Monday, the health workers, Angawadi workers and ASHA workers would reach out to individual households to administer the pulse polio drops to all the eligible children.
Official sources said that during the second round of pulse polio drive an estimated 4,08,397 children would be administered the pulse polio drops. On the first day to enable the people to avail the facility of administering the pulse polio drops at the booths, the district administration has established 1,440 special booths. During the next three days from Monday, 1,440 teams of health workers and volunteers would visit more than 5.20 lakh houses in the district to administer the pulse polio drops. More than 3,200 health workers, Anganwadi and Asha workers were involved in the drive.
