Punjab: Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh on Sunday (May 28) launched a three-day polio immunisation campaign from a district hospital here on Sunday. Minister Singh said that the immunisation drive has set a target of administering polio drops to over 14 lakh children in the age group of 0-5 years from May 28 to May 30 across 12 districts of Punjab. After inaugurating the polio immunisation drive, he said that the Punjab government would soon restructure the ‘pay scale’ of doctors to strengthen government health services. He said that 550 new doctors will join by next month.
The minister himself administered polio immunisation drops to a child at the district hospital.
Stressing the importance of the campaign, Minister Singh said that although no wild poliovirus case has been reported since 2010 and the previous case of polio was reported in October 2009 in Ludhiana, still Punjab is at a high the virus importation from its neighbouring endemic countries, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So, because of this polio campaigns are being periodically undertaken in the state, he said.
Transit teams have already been established at Attari Border to ensure the vaccination of individuals crossing the Indo-Pak border. Similarly, vaccination sites are established at Dera Baba Nanak, District Gurdaspur checkpoint on opening up the Kartarpur corridor, he said.
The minister said that for the successful execution of the campaign, as many as 7,054 booths have been set up while 13,136 door-to-door teams, 334 mobile teams and 279 transit teams have been formed, besides deploying a total of 27,109 vaccinators.
As many as 1,335 supervisors will oversee the work of the vaccinators. The teams will also visit 5,109 high-risk areas which include 2,107 slums, 132 construction sites, 902 nomadic sites, 132 brick kilns and 729 other sites.
Meanwhile, Minister Singh also mentioned that Punjab was in great need of doctors and the government was committed to overcoming the shortage of medical specialists, radiodiagnostics, gynaecologists and others at its level.
The infrastructural requirements and paramedical, as well as supporting staff, would also be recruited in government health institutions soon, he added.
Also Read: Global Eradication Of COVID-19 More Feasible Than For Polio: Analysis
The health minister said that ‘rate contracts’ have already been finalised for 95 per cent of the medicines supplied in government hospitals and the remaining 5 per cent will also be completed soon.
He said that in the near future, the emergency medical services of the government hospitals would be equipped with all required tests, medical experts and medicines to make it more responsive.
Minister Singh also informed that the 580 ‘Aam Aadmi Clinics’ opened in the state have provided major relief to the common people in the healthcare field, due to which the rush of OPD patients in the government hospitals has reduced.
Also in Chandigarh, Nearly 15 lakh children will be covered under the first sub-national immunisation round of pulse polio 2023-24 that will take place in six districts of Haryana, according to an official statement. The six districts are Faridabad, Gurugram, Jhajjar, Mewat, Sonipat and Kaithal in which booth activity was undertaken on the first day in order to maintain the polio-free status of the state, it said.
Also referred to as SNID, the three-day campaign will continue for another two days by way of house-to-house activity to trace and administer polio drops to the left-out children on booth day.
On the first day of the activity, approximately 7.9 lakh children under 5 years of age have been administered polio drops.
In order to smoothly carry out this campaign, around 6,600 booths were set up in the state and these were manned by approximately 26,000 health officials and Anganwadi workers and volunteers.
The left-out children during the booth activity on the first day will be administered polio vaccine drops on May 29 and 30 through visits of house-to-house teams in high-risk areas like slums, isolated hutments, brick kilns, floating or migrating populations and construction sites. The statement said,
It is important to know that due to consistent hard work of all stakeholder departments, India and Haryana are polio free since 2012 and with every successive round of NID or SNID it is ensured that Polio-free status of the country is sustained
Also Read: Greater Efforts Needed To Get Routine Immunisation Back To Pre-Covid Times: WHO
(Except for the headline this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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