Bathinda, May 2: Punjab health and family welfare minister Brahm Mohinder started the state-level measles rubella (MR) vaccination campaign from Faridkot on Tuesday.
Children aged between 9 months and 15 years will be vaccinated regardless of previous vaccination with MR or history of measles/rubella-like illness. Estimated 73 lakh children will be vaccinated during the campaign.
Brahm Mohinder said, “The state government has planned to vaccinate more than 73.5 lakh children in 58,783 sessions with the help of 5,200 teams. For this exercise, 56,974 health employees and volunteers and 48,983 teachers have been given training.
Mohindra said it has also come to his notice that certain elements were trying to mislead the society by spreading false and malicious propaganda regarding measles rubella vaccine through social media, which is unfortunate.
Expressing deep concern about such misleading activity by vested interests, he said the department of health & family welfare is coordinating with religious institutions and NGOs for the campaign. Civil surgeons and representative of IMA also have been roped in to counter this false propaganda.
The department of health & family welfare also launched a massive social media campaign to make the public aware about MR vaccination. He assured everyone that the MR vaccine is absolutely safe like other vaccines and already more than eight crore children have been vaccinated for MR in 15 states of the country and there have been no major side effects.
The minister said 306 doctors would be recruited shortly besides a policy is being framed to use the services of 1,100 doctors presently working under zila parishads. He said in order to ensure the attendance of doctors, bio-metric attendance system would be installed at 22 district hospitals.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
