KOCHI: More than six lakh school students will be given measles rubella vaccination in the district under the intensive vaccination campaign which will be launched on October 3. While addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, district collector Muhammad Y. Safirulla said that various awareness programmes were being conducted in Ernakulam as part of the campaign. The campaign will be from October 3 to November 3 as part of which 7892 vaccination sessions will be conducted. There will be 5299 school sessions, 1346 outreach sessions, 478 mobile sessions and 787 hospital sessions.
The Vaccination campaign will cover children in the age group of 9 months to 15 years. Vaccination will be administered at anganwadis, sub centres and all government, aided and un-aided schools. Though vaccination against measles was part of the national immunisation programme, this is for the first time that rubella was introduced in the national immunisation programme.
During the media interaction, district medical officer Dr. N.K Kuttappan spoke about the importance of MR vaccination as both the diseases affect young children and are life-threatening. Awareness sessions are being held in schools and training programme for the doctors who will lead the vaccination initiative has been completed. Officials of the health department, education department, Indian Medical Association and Lions Club, which is partnering with the programme also attended.
