Polio drive: N-K dists pull down State average
The Health department has decided to focus on four north Karnataka districts during the three-day door-to-door survey of the National Pulse Polio programme, after their poor performance on Sunday.
While the State achieved 84.44 per cent of its target on Sunday, Gulbarga (60.18 pc), Bijapur (70.33 pc), Bidar (73.93 pc) and Raichur (76.43 pc) brought the State's average down. Incidentally, Yadgir district, which was carved out of Gulbarga a year ago, showed 77.64 per cent achievement in the polio immunisation target.
“We are deploying four people in each booth in these districts, as against two per booth in other districts. Even then the reach is less,” said Dr V D Palekar, Project Director (Reproductive and Child Health). He attributed the poor performance to people’s attitudes, who instead of taking the children to the booth wait for the health workers to come to their doorstep. Dr Palekar also pointed out that the coverage in rural areas was better than urban.
However, Dr Y Ramesh Babu, deputy director (immunisation), had a different take on the performance of the districts. He said districts like Bagalkot, Bidar and Bijapur had shown improvement when compared to previous years. “Even the State's achievement has improved in the last three years,” he said.
The districts that showed excellent results in achieving the immunisation targets were Mandya (94.61 per cent), Mysore (93.90 per cent) and Udupi (92.32 per cent). Bangalore urban achieved 87.44 per cent and ranked 18th among the other districts in the State.
While health workers will conduct door-to-door follow-up for three days in rural areas, it will be extended to four days in urban regions due to the larger population.
