The Hindu : Front Page : Funds for villages to deal with chikungunya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 22, 2007
ePaper

Front Page

Front Page

Funds for villages to deal with chikungunya

Special Correspondent

— Photo: R.V. Moorthy

Review meet: Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss flanked by Minister of State Panabaka Lakshmi and Health Secretary Naresh Dayal at the State Health Ministers’ meeting on chikungunya in New Delhi on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: Promising a special package for Kerala, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on Thursday said every village in the chikungunya-affected States would be given Rs. 10,000 annually to deal with the disease.

However, this untied amount would be sanctioned only if the village had a Health and Sanitation Committee as provided under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Dr. Ramadoss told reporters after reviewing the chikungunya situation in the country with the Health Ministers of the nine affected States while appealing to the States to set up these committees immediately. “We will ask these village committees to spend this amount only on sanitation and creating general awareness to check the spread of chikungunya,” he said.

Under the NRHM, this fund can be spent for various purposes after consultation with the village panchayat, health and anganwadi workers. The money will be put in the joint account of the village head and health workers and can be withdrawn and spent only after consultations with the Village Health and Sanitation Committee. However, a majority of the villages do not have these committees and hence, could be deprived of the fund.

The meeting had been called following reports of suspected cases of chikungunya pouring in from the southern parts of the country, particularly Kerala. Last year over 14 lakh cases of suspected chikungunya were reported and this year the number has already crossed 15,000 from nine States with Kerala accounting for 12,000 suspected cases. The Minister, however, denied that there were any deaths due to chikungunya and added that lakhs of people who reported to hospitals were suffering from viral fever.

The Minister said the Centre had decided to grant Rs. 20 crore to the affected States as an initial allocation for chikungunya control. While Kerala would receive a special package in cash and kind, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu would also receive additional funds.

According to Dr. Ramadoss, the Centre had allocated crores of rupees to every affected State last year but many of these, including Delhi, Maharashtra and Karnataka, had failed to utilise these funds. These States have been given two weeks to produce utilisation certificate following which more allocation would be made.

Dr. Ramadoss said the meeting had sorted out several issues raised by the States, including those of finance, testing kits and mosquito nets. The States would be provided with longer lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets, medicines and fish gambosia that eats mosquitoes. “Our focus would be on awareness creation because unless the Government and the people coordinate, achieving success would be difficult.”

This year, 110 hospitals and 13 apex laboratories have facilities for testing the viral and NIV Pune has been allocated additional funds to generate more testing kits. He said experts believed that the disease was here to stay for another three years and it was time to gear up for it.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page