LUDHIANA: With an aim to eradicate measles and control congenital rubella syndrome, the district health department is all set to launch a vaccination campaign from May 1 in which over 12.55 lakh children will be covered. This is a state wide vaccination campaign which has already been covered in 13 other states of the country. The children aged nine months to less than 15 years old will get vaccination free of cost.Disclosing this here on Wednesday the civil surgeon Ludhiana Dr Parvinder Pal Singh Sidhu said Punjab has been kept in the fourth phase of national level MR campaign and earlier 7-8 crores children have been vaccinated in other parts of country. He said here in district the campaign will begin from the schools and later outreach sessions will be conducted.He further elaborated that auto-disable syringes will be used for vaccination of each child. These syringes are rendered non-usable after single use. All the vaccinators are highly skilled health workers who administer vaccinations to the children in routine immunization in large numbers regularly following the best injection and waste disposal practices.Meanwhile the district immunization officer Dr Jasbir Singh said aim of MR campaign is to accelerate population immunity by reaching 100 percent target children with MR vaccine that will reduce cases and deaths from measles and disabilities from Congenital Rubella Syndrome. He said that likewise Polio, it is now targeted to make state as well as country Measles and Rubella free by 2020.He briefed that campaign would be implemented in three strategies: School based community through outreach session based and SVEEP activities. He said that during school based campaign all children in government, government aided, private, army schools, day care centers and crèches shall be vaccinated. Similarly, during community based campaign all out of school children in age group of 9 months to 15 years shall be covered including children in outreach sessions and SVEEP activities.

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