Mysuru district all set to be declared malaria-free

Mysuru: The Mysuru district is all set to be declared malaria-free as no case has been reported for the last five years.

Mysuru which shares border with Kerala has successfully eradicated malaria cases. The neighbouring Mandya, Kodagu, Chamarajanagara, Ramanagara and Bengaluru Rural districts have become malaria-free in the last two years while Mysuru has completely controlled the diseases since 2017.

The assessment was done by Union and State health departments and Mysuru is the first district in Karnataka to nearly eliminate the disease. According to the assessment norms for eradication of malaria, a district should have quality laboratory reports, maintaining of perfect records and cases should be zero since last one year. The eradication of malaria has been possible owing to stringent measures taken up by health officials.

Speaking to The Hans India, health department district epidemic diseases control officer Dr S. Chidambara said that malaria cases were high in the district from 1998 to 2004. The department with the help of ASHA workers created awareness in rural areas of the district. The people also followed the guidelines issued by the department, which elped in bringing down the cases to zero since 2017."In spite of zero cases we have not stopped tests and preventive methods.

We have left fishlings into ponds and lakes which eat larva of female Anapholese mosquito that causes malaria. Besides this major preventive measure, the health workers periodically do fogging and spraying of insecticides in stagnant water to prevent the rowth of malaria-causing mosquito larva. He said the workers migrating from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal Odisha and Chhattisgarh are potential carriers of the disease. The health workers identify the workers from these States in particular and outsiders in general whether they have symptoms or not.