Fight against measles, rubella: 14lakh Ludhiana kids to get vaccine

LUDHIANA: Around 14 lakh children under the age group of 9 months to 15 years old will be covered under a special vaccination drive against two deadly diseases — measles and rubella — for which the district health department has completed all preparations.

Around 8.5 lakh vaccines have reached the health department and this campaign will kick off from April 23.

In the first phase, all the government and private schools will be covered under this campaign. Afterwards, there will be vaccination in anganwadi centres and even dispensaries of the department so as to cover each and every child from 9 months to 15 years old.

The department has formed 464 teams for the district and each team will get four members. They are aiming to cover at least 2.5 lakh children every week to complete the campaign as soon as possible.

In this regard, a team of World Health Organization and UNICEF came to check the preparedness of the health officials on Thursday. The WHO officials also visited two schools in the city for having an idea whether school authorities and students are conveyed about this vaccination or not.

Dr

Balwinder Singh

, national programme officer, immunization, WHO, said, “Under this campaign, 13 states have been covered already in which 7.7 crore children got the vaccination safely. Now it is going to start in Punjab and in Ludhiana it will cover almost 14 lakh children under this special campaign.”

He said though they cannot force the parents to get this vaccination but one vaccination is covering two diseases and if they will miss this opportunity perhaps they will not get it again.

District immunizer Dr Jasbir Singh said no matter whether children in this age group have got this vaccination or not, they will cover all children within four to five week long programme. He said teams have been formed for the purpose and campaign is also going to start.

Vaccination programme nodal officer for this campaign Dr

Puneet Juneja

said this vaccine will be given in all schools, community sessions, anganwadi centres and government health centres and this vaccine is very safe. He said after vaccination they keep half an hour observation time in which they make children dance and enjoy so that they should forget about pain and they get time to notice any kind of side effects from the vaccination.