The Hindu : Karnataka News : Rise in malaria cases, a cause for concern

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Rise in malaria cases, a cause for concern

By Our Staff Correspondent

MANGALORE, JULY 18. With the monsoon becoming active, incidences of malaria are on the rise in Mangalore with the affected people showing signs of resistance to drugs as feared by medical experts.

They said the initial treatment for malaria was through a drug, choloriquin, which would help bring down the fever in 48 hours.

But medication would continue for a week to cure the disease.

Mangalore, which recorded a large number of malaria cases during the 2002-03-monsoon season, registered a steep increase in the number of cases this time.

According to the Malaria Control Cell of the Health Department, the volume of infection has shown a 25 per cent increase from 2002 to 2003.

In 2002, blood smear tests were conducted in urban and rural areas and of them, 5,069 tested positive with 874 cerebral (falciparum) malaria cases. The rest tested positive for mixed infections and vivax.

In 2003, the number of cases increased to 6,344. A total of 3,25,690 blood smear tests were conducted during the year.

The number of falciparum cases increased to 1,070 in 2003. So far this year, 6,993 malaria cases have been registered.

In 2002, urban areas in Dakshina Kannada district recorded 3,739 cases.

A total of 28,032 blood tests (blood smear and fluorescent) were conducted. Of the cases, 777 were falciparum.

In 2003, of the 34,396 blood tests conducted, 5,207 tested positive of which, 968 were falciparum.

About 35 per cent of patients showed signs of drug resistance.

There are individuals who have been infected by three types of malaria many times. Murugesha from Bijapur, who now works at a construction site in the city, has had fever almost every month.

This is because of discontinuation of medicine.

Devadas Shenoy, physician, said malaria had become a social problem.

People who work at construction sites, which were the breeding centres of mosquitoes, would be infected and they would not take proper treatment.

This was one of the reasons for the spread of malaria.

He said the civic body should introduce laws, which would make it mandatory for builders to take care of their workers and not to allow their sites to become breeding centres of mosquitoes.

He expressed the fear that patients, who had become carriers of parasites, had gone beyond the second line of treatment (quinine formulations). It was a dangerous development, he added.

The Mayor, Purandaradasa Kulur, told The Hindu that the Mangalore City Corporation had issued notices to builders in the city to take precautionary steps against malaria.

The State Malaria Research Centre, Bangalore, has recommended to the city corporation to have round-the-clock malaria testing centres manned by pathologists and laboratory technicians.

This will help malaria patients to get results of blood smear tests immediately. Considering the recommendation, the corporation has set up a malaria cell.

However, it has not received equipment to conduct various tests.

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