Pulse polio programme on Jan 20, Feb 24

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BHUBANESWAR: The pulse polio immunisation (PPI) programme would be organised on the coming January 20 in the first phase and February 24 in the second phase covering all the districts of the State. Around 43 lakh children of new born to five year old would be immunised during the programme, said Health and Family Welfare secretary Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra at a meeting on pulse polio held here on Tuesday.

Mohapatra said that after 2008, no polio cases have been detected in the State and the Government would take appropriate steps to continue the trend. According to the Health department, 74, 376 volunteers would be engaged in 18,684 PPI booths to immunise the target group, while 3,736 supervisors would be deployed to administer the immunisation work. About Rs 6 crore would be spent for the PPI programme, the department sources said.       

In the first phase, 362 mobile teams would be deployed to cover children from nomadic groups, migratory families, fishermen and labourers. After the two phases, the volunteers would go door to door to give polio drops to the left out children for next two days.

Out of 30 districts, eight districts were identified as sensitive, while 40 blocks are coming under high risk area out of 314 blocks where the programme would be conducted with cautiously. Mohapatra suggested his officials to make the immunisation programme cent per cent successful and to take appropriate steps to immunise the newborns before the discharge of medical.

Among others, Additional secretary Sibabrata Das, Health and Family Department director Biranchi Narayan Das and representatives of World Health Organisation, Unicef, Rotary Club and TMST were present in the meeting.