In the three-day pulse polio mob up campaign which started yesterday, interesting points have come into light. A few reputed schools of the city refused to get the children below five years administered polio drops by giving one or another excuse.

The teams in the field will be visiting these schools tomorrow again hoping that they will be able to convince the school authorities. Dr Punit Juneja, who is looking after this campaign, while talking to Newsline confirmed the problem being faced by the field staff.

He said, “More than five schools have refused to get their children administered polio drops despite our best efforts convince them that it was in the interest of the children. Because most of the children go to school in the morning hours, we thought of covering the schools as well. However we had no idea of this cold response from the popular schools of the city.”

The excuses which the school staff gave were: they have to obtain the permission of parents first, they can’t get it done on the school campus and the teams should better go to the children’s homes and much more.

“We faced maximum problem in the city schools, while in the outskirts, the school authorities are co-operating a lot,” said Dr Punit Juneja.

The health authorities meanwhile have refused to divulge the names of the schools and they will be making another bid tomorrow. Meanwhile, till now more than four lakhs children have been administered polio drops in the district and the campaign will last till tomorrow.

... contd.