About 98.18% of children who required oral polio immunisation were vaccinated on Sunday. Health Department officials said that 56.34 lakh out of a target of 57.84 lakh children below the age of 5 had been immunised.
“The left-out children will be covered through door-to-door checks in the coming week,” an official said.
In 11 places, the coverage crossed 100% of the target population. In Kovilpatti, the coverage was 113.58%, according to a statement put out by the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. The other places that registered over 100% coverage were Karur, Thoothukudi, Tiruvarur, Vellore, Dharmapuri, Thanjavur, Krishnagiri, Tiruchi, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur.
In Chennai, 95.26% of the target population was vaccinated. Out of 5,53,343 children, 5,27,092 were immunised.
Health Minister Ma. Subramanian inaugurated an immunisation camp in the Five Lights area of his constituency of Saidapet. The United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organisation, and non-governmental organisations such as Rotary International were involved in the camp.
Over two lakh health workers and schoolteachers were deployed, and the vaccine was administered at 43,051 centres, including primary health centres, schools, anganwadis, government hospitals and nutrition centres, besides bus depots, railway stations and toll plazas. The government had earmarked 3,000 vehicles for the purpose. Mobile teams reached out to people in remote areas, a Health Department release said.
The Minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday dedicate a 700-bed hospital in Nagapattinam to the State. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin would participate in the event from Mayiladuthurai.
The Chief Minister is also expected to commission facilities in government hospitals in Madurai, Chennai and Coimbatore that were built at a cost of ₹1,634 crore with support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
AIIMS delay
On the delay in building AIIMS, the Minister said that it was funny that the Union government had built a ₹15 crore-worth compound wall to enclose land for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences that had not even been acquired.
