Traffic staff hit by malaria, BMC steps up door-to-door survey

Mumbai: Even as the top traffic cop complained about malaria affecting a sizeable number of this staff, the civic administration claimed on Monday that it had found a new reasoning for the disease’s seemingly epidemic proportions.
    Apparently, the failure to adhere to the full anti-malaria regimen is resulting in many patients getting a relapse of malaria and fuelling the high incidence, said additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar.
    The BMC soul-searching began with Saturday’s mega meeting called by civic commissioner Swadheen Kshatriya to take stock of the health situation over malaria. Joint police commissioner (traffic) Sanjay Barve told Kshatriya that many of his men had been laid low by the mosquito-borne illness.
   According to highly-placed sources, the traffic commissioner estimated that almost 30% of his staff was affected by malaria. “Even his driver and orderly were affected by malaria,’’ an insider said.
    But civic executive health officer Dr G Ambe, who was present at the meeting, said, “The traffic commissioner was only referring to an upsurge in malaria cases in a police colony located in Mahim.’’
    On Monday, the BMC juggernaut started rolling. It sent out additional teams to check for cases of malaria and fever in this colony. Blood samples of persons with fever were immediately taken.
    Civic officials have increased the team of door-todoor surveillance workers by 30%. “Each member of the door-to-door team has to cover 250 to 300 houses in a day, looking for fever or malaria cases,’’ said Dr Ambe. As the malaria parasite-carrying mosquitoes has a 15-day lifecycle, the BMC team’s agenda is to visit each slum after a gap of 15 days. “Not only do we catch people in the early stages of malaria, but we are able to ensure that they complete their entire course of treatment,’’ said Dr Ambe.
    It was as part of this survey that the BMC babus have decided that poor drug regimen is leading to a spike in cases. “We found that most patients went to private practitioners on getting fever. They took medicines for three to four days and then gave up. But as the malarial parasite has a way of staying on in the liver, many get a relapse,’’ said Mhaiskar.
    The civic protocol is to give patients a 15-day course of primaquine to ensure that a relapse doesn’t happen, said Dr Ambe. “But in the private sector, this is never done.’’ SWINE FLU CLAIMS SCHOOLGIRL
Mumbai: A 14-year-old schoolgirl succumbed to complications arising out of swine flu in a private hospital, said civic officials. According to Dr G Ambe, the girl was hospitalised on July 16 after she had a nose bleed. Th civic officials sent her throat and blood samples to test for swine flu, dengue and leptospirosis—all of which have nose bleeds as a symptom. While the girl tested positive for swine flu, the other results are awaited, said civic officials. On Monday, two new patients were admitted to various swine flu wards of the civic hospitals. Of the existing 13 persons in hospitals, four are children. Since June in Maharashtra, over 100 people have been affected by the worrisome swine flu-causing H1N1. The city toll stands at 16.
    Meanwhile, the civic officials said that no one had succumbed to monsoon-related ailments in the last 24 hours. There were 96 admissions due to malaria, 277 due to fever and one due to leptospirosis in its various hospitals and nursing homes. Now, bldrs will have to cough up more for fogging operations
Mumbai: Even as the number of malaria cases is on the rise, the BMC claims to be doing its best on the ground. Although the civic body took the onus of vector control off builders of construction sites, it has now decided to increase the cost to be borne by the builders in fogging operations.
    Until now, said officials, the builders’ vector control activity was subsidised by the BMC, by charging the former a nominal amount. This fee has not been revised for several years. “We will carry out fogging at construction sites but have now worked up a calculation which will charge the builders more than 10% of what they are paying right now,’’ said a senior official from the civic health department.
    This year, the BMC came up with a proposal that builders would be in charge of carrying out fogging, failing which, action would be taken. “However, nobody showed interest, so we took over since the monsoon was fast approaching. That’s when we decided to increase the rates,’’ said additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar.
    Apart from this, the BMC has appointed a contractor for vector control activities. It has divided the city into six categories: BMC properties, other public properties like railways, slums, private households, building construction sites and old and dilapidated mill structures. Officials have chalked out an action plan for each of the categories. While the BMC and other agencies will be in charge of repairing leakages and cleaning stagnant water in the first two categories, a door-to-door campaign has been launched in the slums to control malaria. For private households, the civic body will start a sensitisation campaign.
    On the clinical side of vector control, the civic body is also urging people not to indulge in self-medication. It has also increased its staff by 30%. “We have also decided to extend our door-to-door campaign to the 30,000-odd homeless people on the streets,’’ said Mhaiskar.