Palamuru gearing up for polio vaccination drive from Feb 27

Mahbubnagar: The district administration is fast gearing up for the first phase of pulse polio vaccination programme form February 27 onwards this month.

As part of the preparations, the district Health department is ensuring everything is put in place beforehand so that each and every child below 5 years of age get the two drops of polio vaccine.

The polio vaccination programme is taken up two times in year across the country. In view of this, for this year, the first phase of pulse polio vaccination programme is being scheduled to launch in Mahbubnagar from 27th of February.

To promote the programme in a big way across the district, Mahbubnagar district collector S Venkat Rao released a poster on the Pulse Polio recently and urged all the departments including Panchayatraj, municipalities, gram panchayats, revenue and others to coordinate with the Health department and make the polio vaccination programme a grand success.

"Usually the pulse polio vaccination programme is held twice in a year. However, during the past two years due to the Covid pandemic, the polio vaccination programme was held only once. But this year, as the Covid cases are fast decreasing and there is no major perceived threat due to any kind of coronavirus infection, the government has decided to carry on the polio vaccination programme as usual and as part of this we have given clear instructions and directions to the health as well as all the concerned department authorities to coordinate with each other at village, mandal, division and district levels and make the pulse polio programme a grand success. I also urge the public to utilize this opportunity and ensure all the children below 5 years of age get vaccinated for the polio virus and stay safe," informed the district Collector.

To make sure that the polio vaccine is accessible to each and every household , the health department officials have decided to set up 93 polio vaccination centers in towns and cities, while about 583 polio vaccination centers in villages or rural areas. Under these vaccination centers is expected that more than 1.10 lakh children who are under 5 years of age group will get vaccinated with polio drops.

District Medical and Health Officer Dr Krishna informed that already 6986 polio vaccine vials have been received so far. All these vials will be distributed to various vaccination centers for which the district administration has already charted out that they will be transported through 68 routes and for supervising the supply and distribution process the district administration has appointed 68 officers.

"We have already set up 24 mobile teams to ensure the polio vaccination is provided to highly populated urban areas. More than 2824 vaccinators have been provided with polio vaccine kits in the district. Of them 203 ANMs, 869 Asha workers and 1124 Anganwadi teachers and another 628 volunteers have been put on the work to make the polio vaccination drive a grand success," observed the DMHO.