An intensive first round four-day pulse polio campaign will be launched in Kalaburagi district from January 28 as a precautionary measure, despite the fact that the district had last reported a case of polio in February 2003.
Deputy Commissioner R. Venkateshkumar, chairing a district-level co-ordination committee meeting here on Thursday, said the district administration has set a target to administer pulse polio drops to 2,87,008 population during the drive. On the first day, 1,485 booths would be set up in all localities to enable parents to bring children below the age of five for the administration of the drops.
In the next three days, all 1,485 teams, along with 130 transit teams and 28 mobile teams, would visit every house in both rural and urban areas to administer pulse polio drops. The 329 supervisors from the Health and Family Welfare Department would carry out door-to-door verification to ensure that no child was left out.
Mr. Venkateshkumar said more than 2,970 personnel including Anganwadi workers were part of the drive. Apart from this, separate booths had been set up at the bus terminal and railway station.
The mobile teams would administer the pulse polio drops to children of labourers whose working hours did not coincide with the teams’ visits. The list of sugarcane cutters had been collected from sugar factories and health workers would reach out to them.
Mr. Venkateshkumar said that India has made one of the biggest achievements in global health – the last polio case reported in the country was in 2011. However, neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan reported 14 polio cases while Pakistan reported 8 polio cases during 2016-17.
Following the global polio eradication initiative of the World Health Organisation (WHO), India launched pulse polio immunisation as a movement in the country since 1995. As many as 63 rounds of the campaign had been held throughout the country till now, he added.
