Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 15

The Health Department’s initiative to conduct meetings and convince the schools heads for going ahead with measles and rubella vaccination campaign bore results as most of the schools which were earlier reluctant to the vaccination have given their go-ahead.

Sixty four schools in the Ludhiana district outrightly rejected the vaccination after misleading videos related to measles and rubella vaccination went viral on social media.

Civil Surgeon Ludhiana Dr Parvinder Pal Singh Sidhu said, “We conducted meetings with the school heads who further educated the parents. Now, the parents are themselves enquiring about the vaccination drive and its schedule to ensure that their kids get vaccinated at the earliest.”

Dr Sidhu said, “I think the old times were better when our parents used to get us vaccinated and we even used to get the marks of the same. Today people are falling prey to social media and blindly following it without knowing what is right or wrong.”

The Health Department has vaccinated 2.56 lakh children aged between 9 months and less than 15 years under the measles-rubella vaccination campaign. Dr Sidhu said that approximately 12.55 lakh children will be vaccinated in Ludhiana district.

He said that around 7-8 crore children have been vaccinated in 13 states in first three phases and drive in Punjab is being carried on in fourth phase.

Dr Sidhu said, “Auto-disable syringes are used for vaccination of each child. These syringes cannot be used after a single use. All the vaccinators are highly skilled health workers who administer vaccinations to the children in routine immunisation drives throughout the state.”

District Immunisation Officer (DIO) Dr Jasbir Singh said, “Over 488 vaccination teams and 163 supervisors have been deployed to cover 2,989 schools. The health workers will conduct nearly 4,656 vaccination sessions in the district.”

Dr Singh said that rubella is infectious yet mild viral illness affecting both the children and adults that can cause death and disabilities in the new-born, if an unprotected pregnant woman gets infected with rubella virus in early pregnancy.

He further said that it also has the potential to cause abortions, stillbirths and severe birth defects known as congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), including deafness and blindness in the new-born children.

Dr Singh said that the objective of measles and rubella campaign has been to accelerate population immunity by reaching 100 per cent target children in the Ludhiana district.