Parents carrying infants and toddlers queued up outside the Urban Primary Health Centre (UPHC) at Borabanda in Hyderabad from as early as 8 a.m. on Saturday (June 27, 2026), waiting for their children to receive two drops of the Pulse Polio vaccine.

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The health facility, one of the 22,979 Pulse Polio booths set up across Telangana, witnessed a steady stream of families throughout the morning as the State launched its National Immunisation Day campaign targeting 40.97 lakh children below the age of five.

The Borabanda UPHC was chosen as the venue for the State-level launch of the programme, with Health Minister C. Damodar Raja Narasimha attending the event. At around 10 a.m., the Minister administered the bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (bOPV) to children inside the health centre before interacting with parents and healthcare workers.

Addressing those present, the Minister urged parents not to become complacent despite the absence of polio cases in recent years. "Though there have been no polio cases for over a decade now, we still need to take precautions to maintain it that way. I urge all parents to take their children to a nearby government health facility and get them administered with the polio vaccine," he said.

Among those who turned up early was 29-year-old Venkatesh, a resident of Borabanda, who arrived at the UPHC at around 8.30 a.m. with his nine-month-old child. "Yesterday I saw an advertisement near my home about the Pulse Polio programme, so I came here today," he said while waiting for his child's turn.

The three-day Pulse Polio campaign, being conducted as part of the National Immunisation Day programme, aims to vaccinate 40.97 lakh children below five years across Telangana. While June 28 has been designated as booth day, health workers will undertake house-to-house visits on June 29 and 30 to administer the vaccine to children who missed the booth vaccination. Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Medchal Malkajgiri, and Sangareddy districts will conduct an additional round of house-to-house visits on July 1 considering their large urban populations.

To implement the programme, the Health Department has established 22,979 vaccination booths, deployed 903 mobile teams, and set up 903 transit vaccination points. The campaign is being supported by 2,298 route supervisors, 8,393 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), 27,181 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and 34,442 Anganwadi Workers (AWWs). More than 52 lakh doses of the bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine have been supplied to districts for the drive.

Telangana has remained polio-free for 18 years, with the last reported case recorded in Huzurnagar of Suryapet district in 2007.

Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, Tribal Welfare Minister Adluri Laxman Kumar, Government Whip Addanki Dayakar, Jubilee Hills MLA Maganti Gopinath Naveen Yadav, Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare Sangeetha Satyanarayana and Hyderabad District Collector Priyanka Ala were also present.