The Hindu : Front Page : Chikungunya: Health Ministers to meet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

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Chikungunya: Health Ministers to meet

W. Chandrakanth

Four States to chalk out strategy on fighting the epidemic next month

HYDERABAD: Alarmed over the prevalence of the viral fever, chikungunya, on an epidemic scale in the Southern States, Health Ministers of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are meeting in Bangalore next month to chalk out a strategy.

Madhya Pradesh is likely to send its representative since it has also reported serious outbreak of viral fevers, according to Andhra Pradesh Health Minister K. Rosaiah.

Lakhs of cases have been reported in the four States during the past six months following which their officials met in Mumbai in June to discuss measures to tackle the menace that returned four decades after it arrived in India through Kolkata in 1954-55.

First reported in December 2005 in Andhra Pradesh, chikungunya was restricted to Kadapa, Kurnool, Nalgonda and Chittoor before spreading rapidly to other districts and catching the health administration completely off guard. What began as an urban phenomenon, caused by the Aedes mosquito, commonly known as tiger mosquito, has spread to villages too.

Until recently, the Government refused to accept that it had become an epidemic. But, now health officials confirm that chikungunya has been reported in 1,408 villages and they are running 3,562 health camps. However, the epidemic is now tailing off after reaching a peak in March-April, Mr. Rosaiah claimed.

Chikungunya per se does not lead to fatalities but it has a debilitating effect on families below the poverty line in case the bread-winner is laid up with the fever besides causing turbulence on the domestic front in families where the housewife cannot get back to normal work even after two months.

Symptoms like severe joint pains and swelling of legs coupled with fever haunt them for several weeks.

While four lakh cases have been reported in Karnataka, the official figure in State Government hospitals is 65,992 of which 150 cases have been confirmed as chikungunya in viral serology reports received from the National Institute of Virology, Pune. But, the reality is different.

Conservative official estimates put the number of chikungunya cases at well above two lakhs, including those in numerous private hospitals and clinics.

In fact, these hospitals are so packed with patients showing all symptoms of the viral fever that they are turning away new cases due to lack of infrastructure, particularly sufficient number of beds.

Teams from the Central Health Ministry and Directorate of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme and WHO have already toured the State but there is little relief to people.

As the Aedes mosquito breeds in containers like cisterns, overhead tanks, discarded junk, old tyres and even shells of tender coconuts, officials emphasise that people's participation is crucial to the fight the disease.

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