Health officials ensure polio immunisation

Health officials worked till the wee hours of Sunday to ensure that the consignment of polio doses was transported to centres across Pune and neighbouring districts. Due to the delay by the Centre in sending the doses,the officials in the state were on tenterhooks regarding the smooth implementation of this year’s first round of immunisation against polio.

In Pune,a total of 1,300 booths were arranged to administer doses to 3.45 lakh children. According to Dr Sunil Tore,Pune Municipal Corporation Immunisation officer,a total of 3 lakh children were given the doses and the remaining will be covered by house to house visits in the next five days.

Dr V M Kulkarni,state immunisation officer,said that in the last two days the entire consignment of over a crore doses of vaccine was sent to the state’s office in Pune. It was only late on Saturday that the boxes with the droppers were received and subsequently transported to other places.

Due to this hitch,several districts like Dhule,Jalgaon and Nashik got their consignments only on Sunday morning. However,due to the prompt action in transporting the vaccines and dropper boxes taken by the state and district level health officials,the round of immunisation against polio was successfully implemented,Kulkarni said.