BMC plans to bring malaria surveillance to your doorsteps

Mumbai: Inspired by the success of its recent door-todoor campaign to keep a check on the spread of H1N1 virus, the BMC now plans to repeat its act for malaria.
    It has chalked out an integrated programme to tackle malaria as well as the other health scare, polio. In fact, the week-long Pulse Polio drive that begins this Monday will also be used as a platform where residents will be tested for malaria and if the results come positive, they will be provided with treatment.
    “Our medical teams go to every house during the Pulse Polio drive. Now, they will also spread awareness about malaria. We will ask people not to take fever lightly and see a doctor immediately,’’ said additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar. “We will also look at ways to check the breeding of mosquitoes and make the process more transparent. We aim to cover 33 lakh households.’’ The first six days of November have already seen six malaria deaths across different hospitals in the city. While 57 residents died in October, January 1 to October 31 recorded 175 deaths. BMC officials said the
door-to-door survellience was important as patients hardly ever visited civic hospital as the first resort. “Usually, people first go to local doctors, dispensaries or hospitals. After nothing works, they come to us,’’ said Mhaiskar. An analysis conducted by the BMC found that 73% of the deaths occurred owing to a delay in treatment. “Timely treatment and medication is absolutely important,’’ she said.
    Medical experts had, so far, believed that malaria—a disease that spreads through the sting of the female anopheles mosquito—is fatal only when it’s the falciparum strain, which affects the nervous system. Malaria has four variants, but vivax and falciparum are the two common ones.
    However, a couple of years ago, city doctors realised that vivax, the world’s common malaria strain, which affects about 400 million people every year, could no longer be taken lightly. “Patients with vivax malaria can now land up in an intensive care unit (ICU),’’ said a doctor.
Samples of H1N1 patients sent to NIV for testing TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: Swine flu is back in the news with the admission of two more patients recently at the civic-run Nair Hospital, Mumbai Central. Even though the civic administration maintained that both the patients showed all the symptoms of swine flu, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), they tested negative for H1N1. This has prompted the BMC to write to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, about its observations in these two cases.
    Several patients in the past few days have been showing symptoms but have not tested positive to the H1N1 virus. Director of medical research and education Dr Sanjay Oak said that the BMC had written to the NIV about this observation. “The two patients at Nair Hospital had classic symptoms of swine flu, but tested negative. We are awaiting a reply from the NIV,’’ Dr Oak said.
    He added that it was too early to say if the virus had mutated. “It could be a variant of H1N1 but it is too early to say whether the virus has mutated,’’ said Dr Oak.