ALLAHABAD: When it comes to scripting success stories in terms of vaccinating children, Allahabad district tops the chart among all other 23 districts of the state with a record of administering over 10.7 lakh children with anti-measles vaccine. The final round of Measles Catch-up Campaign brought smiles on the faces of the district health authorities and district administration as the health teams covered 4,59,976 children between 9 months to 5 years and 6,10,504 children aged between 5 and 10 years during the entire campaign carried out between April 22 and May 20, 2013. Chief medical officer, Allahabad, Dr Padmakar Singh told TOI, "Areas like Bahria, Kotwa, Dhanupur, Shankargarh, Kaudhiyara, Meja, Teliyarganj, Naini, Kamla Nehru and Duffrin have achieved 100% result while other localities like Phulpur, Soraon, Kaurihar, Saidabad, Pratappur, Jasra, Chaka, Ram Nagar, Koraon, Kareli, Govindpur, Civil Lines achieved 95-98% results in administering anti-measles vaccine." District immunization officer (DIO), Dr Ashutosh Kumar said, "During the entire campaign, a total of 2.26 lakh measles vials were used for administering vaccine to over 10.7 lakh children. As many as 11.14 lakh syringes were also utilized during the entire campaign, he added. He further maintained that Kaudhiarya had achieved the highest, 107%, result while the lowest result was witnessed in Manda area with 73% vaccination. DIO, meanwhile, maintained that cooperation by educational institutions and ICDS had helped health authorities to achieve the target. He further added "Interactive sessions with parents and invitations to colonies also helped in campaign. He further said the district authorities played a major role in convincing the schools managements for approving to conduct vaccination camps in schools. To ensure that each child was vaccinated, trained paramedical staff were outsourced and deputed at schools under the supervision of doctors. The school administrations too extended all possible facilities to ensure the smooth conduct of the camp. The experts said measles vaccination confers immunity in 85% of children when administered at the age of 9 months, a substantial number of children remained vulnerable even if they were vaccinated. Hence, the Catch-up campaign had offered a second opportunity to the susceptible group of children and provided a way to secure immunity against measles, added the officials. In the first phase of the Measles Catch-up programme, the children under 10 years of age were covered by conducting camps in different city schools. Officials, meanwhile, informed that measles was a highly infectious diseases caused by a virus. Around 50,000 to 1,00,000 children die of measles annually, making it one of the leading causes of death among children. These deaths can be prevented by immunising children with ant-measles vaccine at the right time. The measles catch up programme was taken up in 23 districts of the state including Allahabad, Banda, Chitrakoot, Fatehpur, Hamirpur, Kaushambi, Mahoba, Gonda, Basti, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Siddarthnagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Azamgarh, Badohi, Chandauli, Janpur, Mau, Mirzapur, Sonebhadra and Varanasi.