‘Final Battle against Polio on Jan 19’

“We are on the verge of eradicating polio from the country and the pulse polio immunisation programme on January 19 is like our last battle,” Greater Hyderabad municipal commissioner Somesh Kumar has said.

Kumar, who chaired the district task force meeting at the GHMC head office here on Friday to review the arrangements being made for the National Immunisation Day and Pulse Polio Immunisation programme on January 19, said that if the polio virus was eradicated now, the chances of recurrence of polio cases would be more.  Claiming that no polio case had been reported in the past few years, he, however, asked the officials to remain vigilant. The commissioner said that children in transition were prone to the disease and called for focus on transition points such as railway stations, bus stands and airports and also on slums and areas  beyond slums and no-man’s lands which do not fall in the jurisdiction of a particular local body or administration. He wanted all such areas covered by health officials  even if there was a chance of duplication of the programme by another agency.

Kumar directed the additional commissioner (H&S) to involve the entomology staff and the additional commissioner (UCD) to involve women’s self-help groups, slum- level and town-level federations, community organisers and project officers for house- to-house visits to motivate parents to have their kids administered polio drops on January 20, 21 and 22. He asked the additional commissioner (advt) to release slides of the message for screening at all  cinemas.