No new polio cases detected

An intense polio drive was carried out on Sunday after the state was faced last month with its second polio case of the year.

The drive covered about 68 per cent of about 13 lakh children below five  years through the 6,700 booths across the city, said BMC’s assistant health officer, Usha Ubale.

Stating that no fresh cases of polio had been reported after Vasai’s four and-a-half-year-old Shobha Kumari died of meningitis in Bihar after she tested positive for the virus in August, Ubale said, “From Monday, the door-to -door campaign will also begin.”

Earlier, a girl from Amravati had also succumbed to the virus in January this year.”

“No fresh cases were reported from Raigad, where a simultaneous drive was
carried out,” said Dr Prakash Doke, state director general of health services.

Meanwhile, “the samples of about 50 children from Vasai sent to the Haffkine Laboratory have tested negative for the polio virus,” confirmed Doke.