Shahjahan Afzal
Kupwara, Dec 21: Despite the cold and intermittent rains and snow, thousands of parents rushed to polio vaccination centers on Sunday in north Kashmir's frontier district Kupwara to get their children vaccinated under pulse polio immunization program.
Around 608 polio vaccination centres in all the 9 medical blocks which include  Machil, Kairan, Teetwal and Gabra were set up across the district including transit camps manned by over 2400 health, ICDS and ASHA workers for making the immunization program successful in the district.
CMO Kupwara, Dr Khursheed Ahmad Salman told Rising Kashmir that the department had estimated nearly 1,48,000 children of the age group 0 to 5 here and the arrangement for polio vaccination had been made accordingly.
As per the reports from different parts of the district, the immunization program has been better despite inclement weather, the CMO said.
70 per cent target is expected to be achieved on the first day, he said adding the left over target will be achieved through door-to-door program over the next few days.
Here the campaign was started by administering pulse polio drops by CMO to two months old, Moomin.
With the aim of bringing Gujjar and Bakerwal community into the fold of the vaccination programme, mobile teams with the special vaccination kits were sent to the higher reaches for the vaccination of the Gujjar and Bakerwal children belonging to age groups from 0 to 5.