Vaccination will be carried out at booths on December 21, followed by door-to-door visits over the next two to three days to ensure that no child in the 0–5 age group is missed.
| Photo Credit: file photo
Over 62.4 lakh children in the 0–5 age group will be covered under the Pulse Polio immunisation campaign to be held across Karnataka on December 21, Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said on Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi, the Minister said the National Immunisation Day (Pulse Polio) is being observed as a precautionary measure to sustain India’s polio-free status, even as cases continue to be reported from neighbouring countries. In 2025, Pakistan reported 51 and Afghanistan 10 cases of wild polio virus, highlighting the risk of importation.
The campaign will be conducted in one round using the bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV). Vaccination will be carried out at booths on December 21, followed by door-to-door visits over the next two to three days to ensure that no child in the 0–5 age group is missed.
Mr. Rao emphasised that all children below five must be given two drops, even if they have received polio drops earlier. Under the routine immunisation programme, every child is entitled to five doses of oral polio vaccine and three doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), he said.
Special focus will be placed on high-risk and hard-to-reach areas, including villages, hilly and forest regions, brick kilns, migrant settlements, urban slums, farmhouses, and transit points such as railway stations, metro stations, airports, and seaports.
Over 33,000 booths
For the campaign, the Health Department has set up 33,258 booths, with the support of 1,030 mobile teams and 2,096 transit teams. As many as 1,13,115 vaccinators and 7,322 supervisors have been deployed. The programme is being implemented in coordination with various government departments and supported by organisations such as the WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, the Indian Academy of Paediatrics and the Indian Medical Association.
The Minister said the polio vaccine is completely safe and appealed to parents not to be swayed by rumours. The nearest vaccination booth can be located through the Nearby Vaccination Centre Karnataka mobile application.
He said public cooperation was crucial to ensure that every one of the 62.40 lakh targeted children is protected.
Published – December 17, 2025 08:57 pm IST
