Pulse Polio Campaign June 28: 1.58 lakh children to get vaccine in Gandhinagar
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
More than 1.58 lakh children in Gandhinagar district will receive oral polio drops on 28 June under the Pulse Polio National Immunisation Campaign, with the district health administration deploying 3,167 health workers, 746 vaccination booths, and dedicated mobile and transit teams to ensure no child is left out.
Scale of the Drive
The campaign targets 1,58,721 children aged 0 to 5 years across Gandhinagar, each to receive two drops of the oral polio vaccine. The booth network of 746 centres spread across the district forms the primary delivery mechanism, giving parents a convenient access point on the designated immunisation day.
Reaching the Hard-to-Reach
Recognising that booth-based outreach alone cannot cover all children, authorities have deployed 103 mobile teams to serve high-mobility and underserved populations — including workers at brick kilns and construction sites. An additional 5 transit teams will operate at bus stands, railway stations, and other transit hubs to vaccinate children who are travelling on 28 June. This layered approach reflects national immunisation best practices for achieving near-complete coverage in urban and peri-urban districts.
Follow-Up Mechanism
Children who miss the main drive will not be left unvaccinated. On the second and third day of the campaign, 427 dedicated house-to-house survey teams will fan out across the district to identify and vaccinate any child who was absent from a booth. This door-to-door sweep is a critical safeguard, as even a small pool of unvaccinated children can sustain transmission risk in a densely populated area.
Administration Appeal
The Gandhinagar district administration and the state health department have urged parents to bring all eligible children to the nearest vaccination booth on 28 June. Officials invoked the national campaign slogan 'do boond zindagi ki' — 'two drops of life' — underscoring the continued importance of the drive in sustaining India's polio-free status, which the country has maintained since 2014.
With polio eradicated domestically but still circulating in neighbouring countries, health authorities stress that sustained high immunisation coverage remains the only reliable shield against reintroduction of the virus.