Amaravati, Jun 28 (PTI) Andhra Pradesh Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav on Sunday said over 91.9 per cent of children below five years of age in the state were administered polio drops on National Immunisation Day.
The drops were administered under the Pulse Polio programme, Yadav said.
The minister said of the 49,20,239 children in the 0-5 age group across the state, 45,24,116 received polio drops on Sunday.
Medical teams will visit the homes of the remaining children on Monday and Tuesday to administer the vaccine, he added.
“The Pulse Polio programme received an encouraging response across the state, with 91.95 per cent of eligible children covered on the first day,” Yadav said in a press release.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu launched the programme by administering polio drops to children here, while Yadav participated in the programme in Visakhapatnam, it said.
According to the statement, NTR, Markapuram and Krishna districts recorded coverage of 115.1 per cent, 113.2 per cent and 104.2 per cent, respectively, while Palnadu and Anakapalli registered 98.06 per cent and 97.9 per cent coverage.
Kurnool recorded the lowest coverage at 73.5 per cent, followed by Annamayya at 79.9 per cent and Nandyal at 80.9 per cent.
Chakradhar Babu, Commissioner, Health, Medical and Family Welfare, said around 1.3 lakh personnel were deployed for the campaign.
The state set up 29,873 Pulse Polio booths, besides deploying 1,757 mobile teams and establishing 1,144 transit booths.
The Centre supplied 68.6 lakh doses of the polio vaccine to Andhra Pradesh, which were distributed to all districts for the immunisation drive.
Yadav said sustaining Andhra Pradesh’s polio-free status was a shared responsibility of the government, parents, civil society and community institutions.
Addressing a state taskforce on immunisation earlier, Principal Secretary, Health, Medical and Family Welfare, said India’s polio-free status was one of the country’s biggest public health achievements and must be safeguarded through continued vigilance.
While India has remained polio-free for over a decade, Kumar said the risk of importation persists as wild poliovirus continues to circulate in endemic countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He noted that wild poliovirus had been detected through environmental surveillance beyond these regions, warning that no country is fully safe until the disease is eradicated globally. PTI MS SSK
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