The second round of the national pulse polio immunisation programme was held in the district on Sunday. The programme was launched at urban health centre in Giripuram here. Vijayawada (West) MLA Velampalli Srinivas, Vijayawada (Central) MLA Malladi Vishnu, Vijayawada (East) MLA Yelamanchili Ravi, Municipal Commissioner G. Ravi Babu and others administered polio drops to the children.
On the occasion, the MLAs urged the parents to bring their children to polio vaccination centre to administer the drops. The government was spending crores of rupees to eradicate the polio in the country.
It was duty of every citizen to lend their support in government's endeavour, they said.
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Mr. Ravi Babu said that efforts were on to make the city, a polio free city.
The parents should voluntarily come forward to administer the drops to avoid polio. It was better to prevent than cure. The polio drops would be administered on Wednesday and Saturday at Urban Health Centres regularly, he said.
The Corporation conducted a three-day door-to-door mapping in the city, and made arrangements accordingly. The programme will cover more than 1.34 lakh children in the age group of 0 to 5 years in the city limits alone.
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The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has opened 382 booths to administer the polio drops. In addition, 29 transit centres at Durga temple, Railway Station, Bus station, Gunadala and other places were functioning.
Ten mobile teams were also constituted to reach every child, he said.
District Medical and Health Officer Dr. Sarsijakshi, Chief Medical Officer of Health M. Satyanarayana Raju and others were present.
Rotary Club of Vijayawada conducted the immunisation programme in association with Pinnamaneni Siddhartha Medical College.
K. Karunamurthy and five medicine students of the college participated in the programme and administered the drops to 150 children. Club president P. Krishnaji and others were present.
At district head quarters, Machilipatam MP Konakalla Narayana Rao administered polio drops to children.
On the occasion, he said that onus lies on parents to see that their children do not suffer from polio, he said.
The MP flagged off a mobile polio immunisation vehicle of Rotary Club. Machilipatnam Municipal Commissioner Sivaramakrishna and others were present.