LAKHIMPUR: The children below the age of five years in the State will be administered an additional dose of oral polio vaccine on March 3 as part of the second phase of the Sub-National Pulse Polio Immunisation Campaign. The campaign will be implemented in Lakhimpur district too on the designated date. The target population of children under five years of age, to be administered polio vaccine on the day, in the district is 1,36,053. The Health Department in the district has arranged 871 booths, including mobile and transit booths, to administer the vaccine to the children.
A total of 168 booth supervisors and 29 sectoral supervisors, 14 block supervisors and 4 district supervisors have been engaged to conduct the drive. The booths will function from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on March 3. Booths have been set up in various places like schools, anganwadi centres, health centres and in public places like railway and bus stations, airports, tourist centres and in the camps of migrant labourers. The volunteers will visit houses on March 4 and March 5 as part of mop-up rounds, to ensure that the oral polio vaccine is administered to children who may have missed receiving the vaccine on March 3.
In connection with the drive, the District Task Force meeting was organized on Thursday under the auspices of the Office of the District Additional Chief Medical and Health Officer (Family Welfare). The meeting was held under the management of Dr. Tarun Kumar Deuri, the Joint Director in-charge, District Health Society, Lakhimpur. It was chaired by ADC (Health) Minakshi Perme. In the meeting, Dr. Tarun Kumar Deuri said, “Polio virus cases continue to be reported in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan and as long as a single child remains infected, children in our country are at risk of contracting polio. Failure to eradicate polio from these last remaining strongholds could result in new cases every year. Hence, one National Polio Immunisation Day and two Sub-National Immunisation Days are held in the country every year to maintain population immunity against the wild virus and thus maintain India’s polio-free status. At the same time, injectable inactivated polio vaccine has been made part of the national immunisation schedule for providing routine immunisation cover to all children.”
District Immunization Officer Dr. Bharati Gogoi explained the details about the campaign in the meeting which was attended by Dr. Sucharita Dutta, SMO, UNDP, WHO; Tea Estate Medical Officers, BPHC Medical Officers, all Task Force Members and Block Programme Managers of the NHM, Lakhimpur.
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