Campaign to cover 4.71 L in Chittoor dist

-    Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, through videoconference from Amaravati, inaugurated the new programme for children  
-    Below 5-year-old children will be covered in the campaign
-    Teams of ASHA, Anganwadi and MEPMA to visit homes

Tirupati: With an aim to declare all the children in the state immunised by April-end, the government has come up with an initiative of campaigning to improve child health and to reduce the mortality rate among below 5-year-old children.

A programme named as ‘Palakarimpu’ has been inaugurated by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu through videoconference from Amaravati on Sunday and the programme will be implemented from March 5 to 31. As one such campaign received a good success in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the government has also planned to implement it across 13 districts in the state.

The campaign was aimed to cover cent per cent immunisation of all children aged below 5 years. Each team, consists of two members in rural areas and three in urban areas are drawn out from ASHA or Anganwadi workers. As their number will be less in urban areas, members of MEPMA will be included in the teams. The team members should cover at least 10 households per day and the survey will be taken up between 2-5 p.m only. After that the concerned in-charges must upload data to district headquarters, said Chittoor district immunisation officer (DIO) Dr U Vijaya Kumari.

The members will indicate every house that was visited with a campaign sticker on the door. They should obtain the information regarding the children who were not immunised so far along with detection of birth defects and refer them to higher centres for corrective treatment. Children suffering from respiratory diseases, anaemia, diarrhoea, epilepsy, dermatological infections and other ailments will also be identified to provide treatment. They will vaccinate the identified left outs and dropout children during this process. Detection of severely acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderately acute malnutrition (MAM) children will also be done and refer such cases to nearest Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres for treatment.

The strategy involves two phases, identification of gaps and delivery of services and the support of women and child welfare, MEPMA and department of tribal welfare will be taken at different stages. The teams should ensure 100 per cent immunisation in their respective areas. Because of Pulse Polio programme on March 11, the survey will not be undertaken during March 9-14, said the DIO.

 In the state, 50 lakh children will be covered under the programme whereas in Chittoor district 4,71,402 children will be covered in both rural and urban areas.

In all, there are 3,007 ASHA workers in the district among which only 141 in urban areas. Similarly, among 4,588 Anganwadi workers, 117 were at urban areas. Hence, the services of 1,28,258 MEPMA members will be utilised in urban areas, said Dr Vijaya Kumari.

The goal is to see that no child should be there without immunisation, she said.

V Pradeep Kumar