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'Civic body does not have ammo to fight malaria'

Don't just blame pits of clogged water at various construction sites across the city for the spread of malaria in the rains. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) does not have adequate stocks of medicines, such as Vectobac, and insecticides like DDVP and Pyrethrum, to wage war against the disease. Whatever little stocks it has are of poor quality, procured from small factories in Bhiwandi instead of the reputed companies.
Sharad Rao, president of the Municipal Mazdoor Union, alleged on Thursday that the BMC had just enough DDVP and Pyrethrum to last 20 days. This contradicted the civic body's claim, made at a recent meeting attended by mayor Shraddha Jadhav and Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray, of having enough medicine and insecticides to last two and half months.
"It has been brought to our notice that DDVP, an insecticide sprayed at the mosquito breeding sites, is originally a Bayer India product. But the BMC has bought it from a local manufacturer, and that too only 10% of the total amount required to last the monsoon," Rao said. "Even medicines like Vectobac have been locally purchased from small factories at Bhiwandi. They are inferior in quality to the original branded product."
Rao said that his workers had to spray Vectobac with Marut-brand pumps. "But there are not enough of these pumps. So, workers are using wooden sticks instead, each with a piece of cloth (boocha) tied at its end, to apply the medicine. But the process is not as effective as spraying the medicine," he said.
The union leader alleged that 40% of fogging machines were not in use for want of spare parts. "While construction sites are major breeding sites, nullahs are no less dangerous. But there are not enough machines to spray medicines in the nullahs. Even permanent workers are sitting idle at times," he said.
He also raised the issue about having only one laboratory at Kasturba Hospital for blood sample testing. "With there being just one lab, it takes more than 15 days to analyse the samples. A patient could be dead before his reports come in. There are just 48 technicians in the lab. The head of the lab has asked for 85 more technicians, but the BMC has done nothing about it."
GT Ambe, executive health officer of the BMC, refuted Rao's allegations. "All medicines and insecticides in our stock are approved by the National Vector Control Laboratories. There can be no doubt about their quality. Bayer India did not approach us during the tendering process, and we cannot approach it on our own," he said. "We have a month's stock of Tamiphos, a drug used for anti-larval drive against malaria. There are enough insecticides to last two months."
About the inadequate number of technicians at Kasturba lab, Ambe said, "We have increased the number of technicians. Collection of slides has increased over the past 10 days. That is why there is a backlog of 5,000 slides."