Kothagudem: Agency villages witness sharp decline in malaria cases

Kothagudem: The agency villages in the district have been registering fever malaria cases for four years thanks to preventive measures taken by the Health department.

The district has registered only 62 cases so far, which is a record in the history of agency. It used to report large number of cases in united Andhra Pradesh, particularly in Bhadrachalam agency villages. Now the cases of malaria in Bhadradri Kothagudem district have been declining for the last four years.

Earlier the department had conducted pyrethroid spraying in 444 villages in the district. Now depending on cases, the officials are conducting spraying in 249 villagers.

In this order, an action plan has already been drawn up and sent for approval to carry out synthetic pyrethroid spraying in 26 sub-centres within 19 PHCs of the district from June 15.

There is a population of 86,000 in these 19 PHCs in the district.. One tonne of synthetic pyrethroid is already available in the district and three more measures are being taken, informed officials.

They said, spraying will be carried out in two phases in a period of 45 days and for this purpose Rs 20 lakh will be paid as wages to the staff who have done the spraying.

According to officials, the malaria cases in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district have been declining for the past few years. They said, 364 malarial positive cases were recorded in 2020 in 444 villages; in 2021, the numbers came down to 355. The district recorded 296 cases in 2022. This year the district has registered 62 cases so far.

According to API (Annual Parasite Index), the malaria department is conducting spraying in the villages, which means that if two positive cases out of a thousand people are reported in a village, synthetic pyrethroid will be sprayed to prevent the spread of malaria in that village. As a result, the number of malaria cases is decreasing gradually from 2020.

Officials of the Malaria Department started a positivity survey (to identify silent carriers) in different parts of the district on Monday.

According to medical sources, the positive cases are coming to light as silent carriers through migrant laborers from the border States of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. For this purpose, for the past few years, the officials of the Department of Malaria have been conducting positive surveys in 173 villages and 79 sub-centres under the jurisdiction of 28 PHCs. Samples will be collected from 26,591 people.

District Malaria officer G Venkatesarlu said, "We are working towards making malaria-free district up to 2027" . As part of the World Malaria Day, the department will be conducting rallies, seminars and awareness programmes in all the villages in the district on Tuesday, he added.