By IANS
Jaipur : Rajasthan has witnessed an alarming rise in cases of malaria in recent weeks even as the state government is putting in place a plan to combat diseases that spread during monsoon.
Between July 1 and July 7, over 1,110 cases of malaria were recorded across the state, compared to 667 cases during the same week last year. A majority of the cases have been reported from the western parts of the state.
Concerned over the malaria outbreak, the government has chalked out a strategy to fight the mosquito menace.
“We have prepared an action plan to combat seasonal diseases and we are already working on these lines,” Rajasthan’s Medical and Health Minister Digambar Singh told IANS.
“We have asked all chief medical officers and health officers, doctors and other staff to be on alert,” he said, adding that the government “is fully equipped to fight the disease out”.
The government is also taking the services of some 3,000 private doctors in remote and rural areas. Over 3,000 malaria kits have been sent to all community health centres.
As many as 2,669 villages and areas that have experienced heavy rainfall in recent weeks are under surveillance and measures against mosquito breeding were underway.
Experts feared that the malaria cases could rise, as the intensity of the seasonal disease usually increases after three to four weeks of the first spell of rains – when there is also the added danger of dengue and chickengunia.
Rajasthan had last year recorded 29 cases of chickengunia – a viral fever transmitted by the bite of the female Aedes Egyptis mosquito that breeds in stagnant water.
They added that the government was yet to make arrangements for chickengunia test kits.
“Last time we had to send the blood samples of patients to Delhi and Pune, as we do not have (chickengunia) testing facilities here. We were promised last year that a virology lab would be opened here, but nothing has been done up to now,” a prominent doctor here said on condition of anonymity.