The Coimbatore district administration, Department of Public Health, Coimbatore Corporation and other organisations such as Rotary Clubs carried out an intensive Pulse Polio Immunisation programme in the district on Sunday to administer oral polio vaccine to 3,14,992 children in the 0-5 years age group. This translates into an achievement of 98.46 per cent of the targeted 3.19 lakh children in the district.
Those immunised included 1,500-odd children from families belonging to other places but currently residing in Coimbatore.
Further, from Monday to Saturday, workers from the Health Department wing will go on a door-to-door campaign to cover children who were left out of the immunisation drive.
As many as 1,581 booths were established across the district at PHCs, anganwadis, bus stands, railway stations, Coimbatore International Airport, temples and other locations where people congregated in large numbers.
Polio drops were also administered at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital and other Government and private hospitals besides schools. Twenty mobile booths were deployed in Coimbatore. The second phase of immunisation will be conducted on February 22.
Among those who took part in immunisation programmes across the district include Minister for Municipal Administration, Rural Development, Law and Courts S.P. Velumani.
In the 60 of the 100 wards where the Corporation carried out the vaccination drive, the coverage was 97.8 per cent and 1.17 lakh children were covered. In the remaining 40 wards, the Department of Public Health administered the vaccine.
According to sources, the Corporation deployed 784 workers, which included 491 volunteers. The Corporation nurses’ strength was 126.
The civic body administered the oral vaccine drops at 196 booths in the city, including five mobile booths and six transit booths in bus stands and at the Coimbatore Railway Junction.
This year, the Corporation had given additional focus on children of migrant workers.
Tirupur
In Tirupur district, the coverage was 90.2 per cent of the targeted 2,22,568 children.
In the urban areas, 56,456 out of the targeted 65,745 children were given the vaccine with an achievement of 85.9 per cent.
In the rural areas of the district, the achievement was 92 per cent with 1,44,271 children out of the 1,56,823 children identified for the campaign.
Door-to-door campaign would be on for a week to cover the children who were not covered on Sunday, said N. Ragupathy, Deputy Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
The authorities had set up 1,091 static booths, 23 transit booths at bus stands, railway stations and places of tourism importance, and deployed 40 mobile teams to administer the vaccine.
Udhagamandalam
In The Nilgiris district, people queued up with their children in front of various immunisation booths particularly in the rural areas from early in the morning on Sunday notwithstanding the bitter Winter chillness.
The Nilgiris Collector P.Sankar set the campaign in motion by administering polio drops to a child at a booth in Kotagiri. Deputy Director of Health Services P.G.Bhanumath said that 770 booths had been set up in various parts of the district to administer the drops.
Among them, 30 were transit booths located near tourist spots such as the Government Botanical Garden, railway stations and bus stands and three were mobile booths to cover those on the highways.
Focus was also on check posts such as Kakkanullah on The Nilgiris-Karnataka border.
Arrangements had been made to administer the drops to 47,072 children including 180 children of migrants with the assistance of 3,080 officials and workers from various departments.
There were also volunteers from non-Governmental organisations and service bodies such as the Rotary Clubs.
(With inputs from R. Sairam and Karthik Madhavan in Coimbatore, R. Vimal Kumar in Tirupur and D. Radhakrishnan in Udhagamandalam)
