Amaravati | Nearly 50 lakh children under the age of five are receiving polio drops across Andhra Pradesh on Sunday as part of the National Immunisation Day programme.
Andhra Pradesh Health and Family Welfare Commissioner Chakradhar Babu said so far, polio drops have been administered to over 25.7 lakh of the 49.2 lakh identified beneficiaries, covering 52.4 per cent of the target.
"As of 1 pm, polio drops have been administered to 25,77,987 children below the age of five, covering 52.40 per cent of the identified beneficiaries," Babu said in a press release.
Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav administered polio drops to children in Visakhapatnam as part of the state-wide Pulse Polio campaign, which aims to cover every eligible child below the age of five with two drops of the bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV).
Yadav said sustaining Andhra Pradesh's polio-free status is 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, S Suresh Kumar said India's polio-free status is one of the country's biggest public health achievements and must be safeguarded through continued vigilance.
While India has remained polio-free for more than 15 years and Andhra Pradesh for over 17 years, Kumar said the risk of importation persists as wild poliovirus transmission continues in endemic countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He noted that wild poliovirus had been detected through environmental surveillance outside endemic regions, underscoring that no country is fully safe until polio is eradicated globally.
The government has set up 29,873 polio booths, deployed 59,746 house-to-house teams and 1,757 mobile teams for high-risk and migratory populations, and established 1,144 transit booths for the campaign.
More than 1.31 lakh field personnel have been deployed for the drive, while over 68.6lakh doses of bOPV have been supplied to districts based on the beneficiary load