Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR) 
 
Mangalore, Jan 2: According to the district health officer Dr H. Jagannath the first phase of the pulse polio drive will be organized in Dakshina Kannada district on January 06, 2008. In all, there will be two phases in close succession of one month, he said.  

Giving details about the said drive in a press conference here on Tuesday, January 1, Jagannath informed that the second phase of the campaign will begin from February 10, 2008.  

He said that for the convenience of the rural populace about 921 booths have been set-up all around the district, out of which 741 booths will be in rural areas and 180 in urban areas.  

Their target being to administer polio drops to around 17,957 children. In all individual booths, there would be four medical personnel with one supervisor manning every five booths." he informed.   

Further he said "A total of 3,684 booth staff and 184 supervisors will be deployed for the pulse polio drive."  Booths will also be set-up at the airport, railway stations and bus stations, he added.  

Giving more details of the last drive Dr Jagannath said 1, 77,220 children were covered under the programme recording an overall achievement of 98.8 per cent. In the present drive 1, 75,957 children would be administered with the pulse polio.
 
L Machado, World Health Organisation (WHO) consultant for national polio surveillance programme also speaking at the press meet revealed that in 2006, 586 polio cases were found in India while the numbers declined to 534 in 2007.
 
He observed that the last case of polio in the district was found in 1998. The world figure for polio cases had stagnated at 3.5 lac in 1998. The number had decreased to down to 714 in 2007.  

Machado elaborating on the same said that since it was difficult to reach out to children of migrant labourers, as they kept moving from one place to another, the pulse polio volunteers were doing their best to reach out to them via mobile polio units, covering remote areas of the country.