Health :: Indian Ardh Kumbh serves as health platform

Alongside religion, this year’s Ardh Kumbh mela served as a platform for health campaigns.

The thrust was on “yoga for health” in camps conducted by gurus like Baba Ramdev and Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravishankar and over 2 lakh children who arrived here along with their parents were immunised in a pulse polio drive.

An AIDS awareness campaign was also launched by the Uttar Pradesh Health Department though it initially met with resistance from sadhus for alleged use of “explicit language” that did not go well with the sacredness of the occasion.

“The influx of pilgrims from across the country obviously posed a threat of the spread of viral diseases. Since a large number of polio cases have come to light in Uttar Pradesh, three of them in Allahabad district alone, we decided to make the mela a platform for the immunisation drive,” District Immunisation Officer Swatantra Mishra said.

He said 128 sites were marked in the mela ground to serve as immunisation centres while 254 were set up at bus stands, railway stations and entry and exit points of the city with 2-member volunteer teams working 12 hours a day.

“When our project started on January 7, we set out to immunise 2.25 lakh children by the end of the mela”, he said adding the target had already been crossed and was expected to reach three lakh by February 16.

He said the deployment of volunteers had to be augmented on auspicious bathing days with 508 2-member teams working under 102 supervisors pressed into service as against 306 teams under 31 supervisors for normal days. PTI


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