12 kids administered sanitiser drops instead of polio dose in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district

YAVATMAL: In a case of medical negligence, 12 children in Maharashtra's Yawatmal district were administered hand sanitiser instead of oral polio doses on Monday. The affected children, aged below 5, were admitted to a government hospital, where their condition is stated to be stable.

Confirming the incident to The New Indian Express, Shrikirhsna Panchal, CEO of Yawatmal Zilla Parished said that they probed the incident and suspended three ASHA-health workers.

The incident took place at Bhanbora PHC (Primary Health Centre) in Kapsikopri village when the National Pulse Polio vaccination drive for children aged 1-5 years was underway.

Panchal said after the report of this unfortunate incident, they ordered the immediate inquiry where the Asha workers wrongly administered the hand sanitiser as a polio dose to 12 kids in that village. “We had even trained them for 15 days. Despite that, the health workers did not follow the training guidelines and administered hand sanitisers to kids. We had asked them to sanitise their hands due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," Panchal said.

“We cannot afford such kind of negligence in the national health program. Therefore, immediate action has been taken against them," he added.

Social activist Kishor Tiwari demanded the high-level probe in this entire incident. “We need to check all angles while probing this case and the administration should take precaution that such kind of an incident should happen again. This is really surprising and shocking that after several years of successful polio drive, how such kind of incident takes place,” Tiwari said.