Tamil Nadu’s pulse polio immunisation campaign to be held on February 27

Nearly 57 lakh children are expected to be covered

The Intensified pulse polio Immunisation campaign will be held in Tamil Nadu on February 27 with a target to cover an estimated 57.61 lakh children aged up to 5 years.

Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said Tamil Nadu was polio-free for the last 18 years. At the national level, no case of polio was detected in the last 11 years. This, he said, was due to the immunisation campaigns conducted for 27 years by involving NGOs such as Rotary Clubs.

“On February 27, the camps will be held in 43,051 places in the State. While 40,368 of these will be permanent booths, there will also be 1,474 transit booths, 696 mobile booths in construction sites, brick kilns, remote hilly areas and places where Narikurava families reside and 513 booths in private hospitals,” he told reporters on Thursday on the sidelines of an event to hand over appointment orders for the posts of joint directors of medical services in newly-created six districts of Chengalpattu, Tenkasi, Kallakurichi, Ranipet, Tirupattur and Mayiladuthurai.

About two lakh government employees would be involved in the campaign. Apart from health department staff, this would include anganwadi workers and teachers.

The Minister added the Chief Minister would launch the campaign at Teynampet on Sunday morning. The mega COVID-19 vaccination camp had been postponed to next week in the light of the pulse polio immunisation campaign, he said, adding that daily COVID-19 vaccination services would continue to be available in 2,500 places including primary health centres and government medical college hospitals. The State has 67 round-the-clock COVID-19 vaccination centres.

Mr. Subramanian said that the health department would take steps to speed up routine immunisation services of 11 vaccines from the first week of March as there was a gap in between due to larger focus on COVID-19 vaccination.