To ensure that people from upper middle-class families participate in the polio eradication programme, the civic body has planned to send doctors along with the polio enumerators in its door-to-door campaign.
To ensure that people from upper middle-class families participate in the polio eradication programme, the civic body has planned to send doctors along with the polio enumerators in its door-to-door campaign.
“Wealthy families are always a problem in such programmes. For the posh areas, doctors will accompany the polio enumerators,” said Dr Kishore Harugoli, officer in-charge of the polio campaign, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The Sunday polio drive saw a dip in the turnout with only 57.58% of the city’s children under five years taking the oral vaccine. The target for this drive was 9,44,661 children. However, only 5,43,936 children were brought for vaccination, which is 2% less than the figure registered in the last drive, which was conducted in March.
“We have extensive polio drop awareness programmes, yet we face such hiccups. Many a times, people belonging to upper middle-class families have problem in getting the polio drops from our enumerators, as they also go in slum areas. In such cases, we have tied up with hospitals such as Breach Candy, Jaslok and others. We have asked people to at least go there and get the drops for their children if they do not prefer taking it from us,” said Dr Harugoli.
“Being a vacation period, we have always faced a problem as people go out of town. We hope to meet the targets with this door-to-door programme. This is the best time, as it precedes monsoon, a time when the virus can be very active.”
The pulse polio drive was started in Mumbai in 1995. The municipal corporation conducts around seven to eight polio drives annually. According to the WHO, poliomyelitis has been eliminated from most of the world, with the exception of India and a few other countries.
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