Nagaland launches pulse polio drive, targets 1.43 lakh children across state

Kohima, June 28: Nagaland on Sunday launched a state-wide Pulse Polio immunisation campaign, administering oral polio vaccine drops to more than 1.43 lakh children below the age of five to safeguard the state’s polio-free status.

According to the Department of Health and Family Welfare, the campaign aims to cover around 1,43,530 children across all 12 districts of the state.

Hundreds of vaccination booths were set up at Primary Health Centres, Anganwadi centres, schools, bus stands and markets, while mobile teams fanned out to remote villages, transit points and migrant settlements to ensure no child was left behind.

The booth-day activity began at 7 am, with parents bringing children to receive the two drops of the bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine. Beginning Monday, health workers and ASHAs will undertake a two-day house-to-house drive to vaccinate children who missed Sunday’s campaign.

District Task Force teams headed by Deputy Commissioners, along with officials from the World Health Organization’s National Polio Surveillance Project (WHO-NPSP) and UNICEF, monitored the exercise.

Health officials said maintaining high immunisation coverage remains crucial despite India being declared polio-free by the World Health Organization on March 27, 2014. The last case of wild poliovirus in the country was reported in West Bengal in January 2011.
However, annual Pulse Polio campaigns continue because of the risk of the virus being imported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the world’s only two remaining polio-endemic countries.

The Principal Director of Health and Family Welfare said polio has no cure and can only be prevented through vaccination, urging parents to ensure their children receive the drops during every round of the campaign.

The immunisation drive was formally launched at the Naga Hospital Authority Kohima, with similar programmes held in district hospitals across Dimapur, Mokokchung and Tuensang.
Village councils and churches also joined the campaign by spreading awareness and mobilising parents.

The latest drive comes even as Nagaland has shown improvement in routine immunisation coverage. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6), full immunisation coverage in the state rose from 57.9 per cent to 64.3 per cent, although nearly one in three children still misses complete vaccination.

Health officials said the Pulse Polio campaign is aimed at achieving 100 per cent coverage and ensuring that Nagaland remains free of the crippling disease.

The state-wide immunisation exercise will conclude on June 30 after the completion of the house-to-house mop-up rounds.

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