Over 500 persons died of
malaria in the north eastern state of Assam in India. Of this , 200 deaths have been reported from Lakhimpur
district alone.
Hospitals in Lakhimpur district are packed with malaria
patients , while no sufficient staff or medicines are available in hospitals. Officials put the casualty to less than five hundred , while the figure is
expected to be on higher scale as no blood slide tests have been conducted to confirm presence of plasmodium falciparum.
In the 200 bedded north Lakhimpur civil hospital , corridors were into hospital extensions to accommodate 400 odd malaria patients. Even the hospital superintendent shifted his office from the hospital to make room for the patients. Under the national vector borne disease control
programme health workers are expected to visit malaria prone villages once in a fortnight and collect blood smears. But this has not been done. A UNICEF team fom Delhi visited the affected areas and suggested the government to activate the malaria eradication programme in that region.
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