Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched the first round of the 20th National Immunisation Day (NID) by administrating two drops of polio vaccine and a vitamin-A capsule to a number of under 5-year children each at Gono Bhaban yesterday. She requested guardians, people’s representatives and local political leaders to ensure that no children aged below 59 months would remain out of the polio vaccination programme.
(Extract)
Marking the 20th National Immunisation Day (NID) Health Minister A F M Ruhal Haque visited the vaccination centres throughout the day in Gazipur. Health workers and volunteers were tasked to administer oral polio vaccines to 24 million children aged 0-59 months and vitamin A capsules to 20 million children aged 6-59 months at 140,000 sites located in health facilities and health centres, schools and other makeshift sites like buses, ferries and train stations or terminals throughout the country from 8 am to 4 pm, according to the Health Ministry and Unicef officials. The government with support from Unicef, WHO, Rotary International and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Atlanta) mounted a model response to immunise all under-5 children across the country when the first case of imported polio was detected in March 2006. Since 1995, Bangladesh started NIDs to eradicate polio. Prior to this case, the country had been polio-free for five years.