Pulse polio drive held across Telangana State

The pulse polio drive to cover children up to five years of age was held across the State on Sunday. The polio national immunisation day, which was inaugurated by public representatives involved inoculating close to 38,319,07 children in 23,331 polio booths.

The Director of Public Health (DPH) in collaboration with other government departments had arranged for 877 mobile teams and identified 877 transit points to administer polio vaccines. The health department had roped in 8,589 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), 2,333 route supervisors and 27,040 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) workers for the smooth conduct the vaccination drive.

“We will conduct mop-up polio vaccination drive for the next few days to ensure those children who have missed out on Sunday still get access to the polio vaccines,” said Health Minister, Eatala Rajender, while inaugurating the polio vaccination drive at



Shamirpet.

Rajender noted that the State government has urged the Union Government to provide Covid vaccine to journalists in Telangana. “For the past one year, along with other frontline workers, journalists from print and electronic media in Telangana have covered Covid by risking their lives. We have urged the Union Health Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan and are awaiting a positive decision,” he said.

Senior health officials said that special emphasis was on vaccinating children in high-risk groups like beggars, nomads, migrants, brick kiln workers, new colonies in outskirts, fishermen and tribal communities.

Mop-up drive including house-to-house visits by field level health care workers to vaccinate children who missed-out will be conducted on February 1 and 2 across the State while in Hyderabad another round of house-to-house visits for polio vaccination will be held on February 3.