The district health department on Monday started Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight in which it will cover the children in the 0-5 age group for next 15-days, to keep them healthy and eliminate diarrhoea which is one of the major cause of deaths especially in children in the country.The department organized a function in DSSD Girls Senior Secondary School Industrial area in which civil surgeon Dr. Gurinder Kaur Chawla along with District Immunization Officer Dr. Tarsem Lal distributed ORS packets and administrated zinc tablets to the students. Addressing the gathering, the civil surgeon said that under the fortnight, a total of 3.34 lakh packets of oral rehydration solution (ORS) and 5 lakh zinc tablets will be distributed by the health department.
She said that each household having children aged 0-5 will be covered by ASHAs and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), who will conduct house to house surveys during this fortnight.She said that the health teams will give demonstrations into houses to how to prepare ORS solutions in the right manner when mothers of children should feed the solution to children so that it can protect children from this water-borne disease. Ms. Chawala said that separate teams under Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) program, will visit schools to train children about the importance of washing hands before eating.She added that the health teams visiting households will also keep the whole date of detection of undernourished children and these teams will give a report to the department so that special attention to be given to them.