Pulse polio drive covers over 98 p.c. children

The first of the two-phase oral polio vaccination drive saw the Health Department and Municipal Administration Department staff cover 98.91 per cent of the district’s 3.20 lakh children aged less than five years.  According to Deputy Director, Health Services, S. Somasundaram, by January 17 evening, the 1,581 staff on duty had administered two drops of the vaccine to 3.16 lakh children. Of those, 1.86 lakh children in the rural areas and 1.30 lakh children in urban areas received the vaccine. But the latter recorded a higher coverage at 99.01 per cent. Coimbatore City Health Officer K. Santhoshkumar said that in the next few days urban health nurses and community workers would go door-to-door to vaccinate those children who had been left out to take the coverage to 100 per cent.  Earlier, Mayor P. Rajkumar inaugurated the campaign in the presence of Deputy Commissioner P. Gandhimathi and councillors at the Seethalakshmi Maternity Home. In The Nilgiris, the Health Department deployed its staff at 770 centres and 30 locations at tourist spots to cover resident children and tourists as well. As many as 1,88,815 out of the targeted 2.2 lakh children aged below five years were administered oral vaccination against poliomyelitis in Tirupur district.  The coverage percentage stood at 85.71 on the day.  Deputy Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine K.R. Jayanthi told The Hindu door-to-door campaign would be carried out on Monday and Tuesday, apart from the administration through select-static booths, to administer the drops to the children who were not covered on Sunday.  Collector G. Govindaraj inaugurated the oral drops administration at District Headquarters Hospital.