The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Anti-filaria programme in 9 more districts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 27, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Anti-filaria programme in 9 more districts

By Our Staff Reporter

The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Panabaka Lakshmi, is all attention at a reiew of national health programmes in Hyderabad on Saturday. Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

HYDERABAD, JUNE 26. Mass drug administration (MDA) to reduce transmission of filaria is being taken up in higly endemic areas in nine more districts of the State, under a revised strategy to supplement the existing National Filaria Control Programme. The districts are Visakhapatnam, Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam, Nellore, Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Nizamabad and Karimnagar.

The MDA programme is being taken up on Saturday in the districts of Krishna, Guntur, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Vizianagaram, East Godavari, Medak and Mahbubnagar. It will be implemented in the other districts next month, a meeting to review the anti-filaria programme attended by the Union Minister of State for Health, P. Lakshmi, at the Indian Institute of Health and Family Welfare, here, was told by State officials.

The Government of India is giving financial assistance and supplying DEC tablets for conducting the MDA programme, which was already taken up in Srikakulam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Medak, Mahbubnagar and Vizianagaram during the last five years.

According to the government guidlines, MDA, with administration of DEC tablets to entire population once a year, is undertaken to check filaria and infection in the community under the elimination of lymphatic filariasis programme. Its objectives are to interrupt transmission in all endemic areas and to alleviate and prevent suffering and disability in affected individuals.

The principal strategy for interrupting transmission of infection is to treat the entire population at risk with a single administration of DEC once a year for four to six years. The goal of such treatment is to protect the next generation from manifestations of the disease by breaking the cycle of infection between mosquitoes and humans.

Regarding the steps to control malaria, the meeting was told that after the implementation of the Enhanced Malaria Control Project in the State's tribal areas its incidence had come down from 47,889 cases during 1997 to 18,075 cases in the year 2003. The total incidence of malaria in the State has fallen from 129,577 in 1997 to 35,995 last year, a total decline of 72 per cent.

Officials informed the Minister that the incidence of Japanese Encephalitis and Dengue was under control after various control measures were implemented. This year 12 confirmed cases of Dengue were reported so far in the State— nine in Kurnool district and one each in Karimnagar and Ranga Rreddy districts and Hyderabad. The Government has instructed the departments of Panchayat Raj, Municipal Administration and others concerned to take coordinated action in controlling the fever. So far only one JE case was reported in Warangal district this year, as against 31 cases and four deaths recorded in seven districts in 2003.

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