Man made Malaria (8)
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Dear colleagues,
I tend to agree with you and Tim Freeman's observation. I also admit
that unfortunately, in India, malaria control integrated with PHC
services, has on grass roots levels (though not on paper) suffered a
lot with dilution of responsibilities and an opportunities of an ex-
cuse 'too much of workload & expectation'. Areas where community par-
ticipation has been achieved to a large extent in 'source reduction'
by using minor engineering methods in the villages have been the
headlights of the success stories highlighted to bring forward more
funding agencies into the area.
No doubt, source reduction is a time consuming process to achieve
long term results, larvicides and now bio-larvicides are being pro-
moted by interests other than purely beneficial to mankind. Till such
time, community learns to recognise the beneficial albeit slow ef-
fects of malaria control - we will have to live the chemical control
methods.
A recent example in Delhi, after last year's Dengue outbreak which
resulted in over a 1000 deaths, this year, the city government health
official determined and backed by a 'political will' carried out a
extensive mass media health education to highlight preventive meas-
ures of source reduction in respect of Aedes mosquitoes, ensured that
possible only tenth of the cases have been reported so far in this
year.
The educated lot has been drilled to drain out the water form tempo-
rary collections - water coolers - by end of August. Thus, it remains
to be seen whether the momentum of campaign is one year enthusiasm or
can be maintained in subsequent years as well. The cost of publicity
campaign may have to worked out with reference to the dengue cases
prevented and deaths averted.
I am a public health specialist in government service. I take no
credit in conduct of this program, I am only voicing my observations
and opinions, as I am in charge of health statistics at the moment.
My interests lie in Health Systems Research, epidemiology and PHC.
Dr Ratti, MD
New Delhi
mailto:ratti@usa.net
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