Indore Pulse Polio Campaign: Health department achieves 100% target but lags in Covid vaccination

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The district health department achieved the 100 per cent target of immunising children against polio on Wednesday. The department could administer polio drops to 44,382 children of ages 0 to 5 years by reaching from door to door of those that were left.

However, the three-day anti-polio campaign affected the Covid drive as only about 1,500 people were vaccinated in three days, including 582 on Wednesday.

According to immunisation officer Dr Tarun Gupta, “We could conduct Covid vaccination drives at three sites, including MY Hospital, Hukumchand Polyclinic and Government PC Sethi Hospital. Yes, the number of people being inoculated was fewer for three days as we focused on polio immunisation.” He added that his team had visited most of the slum areas across the district to find children who were left from taking polio drops.

“We’ve administered over 4 lakh polio doses on the first day of the campaign, while about 77,000 children were immunised on the second day and about 44,000 children on the third,” Dr Gupta added. He said the focus would shift again to Covid vaccination as the number of sites would be increased from Thursday onwards.

Covid vax in city at a glance

§ Over 582 people were vaccinated on Wednesday

§ Total 65.54 lakh doses administered in city, so far, including 33.62 lakh doses as first dose and over 30.98 lakh doses as second

§ Over 34.5 lakh doses were administered to males and 30.08 lakh doses to females

§ Over 51.34 lakh doses of Covishield and 14.08 lakh doses of Covaxin administered in city