By IANS,
Raipur : Chhattisgarh has 145,949 malaria patients, mostly in the state’s rural belt, nearly a 60 percent drop in cases since 2000, state Health Minister Amar Agrawal said Monday.
“People say Chhattisgarh has one of the largest number of malaria patients in the country but the fact is that the state has reported a 59.6 percent drop in malaria cases since it was carved out in November 2000,” Agrawal told IANS.
“The state had a total of 361,795 patients in 2000 which has come down to 145,949 by the end of 2007 as per the latest figures available to us,” the minister said. The state has a population of 20.08 million.
“It is a fact that in rural areas, mostly in the forested interiors, health facilities need to be improved. But the government has managed to set up sub-health centres in a majority of forested villages in the state’s southern Bastar northern Surguja regions in the past four years,” he said.
Agrawal said the government was prepared to tackle malaria and has provided over 20 million chloroquine tablets between December 2007 and April 2008, apart from distributing 873,000 medicated mosquito nets to below poverty line families.
Village health workers have been instructed to ensure immediate distribution of chloroquine tablets to patients and report new patients to higher health authorities, the minister added.