AGARTALA, December 4 (TIWN): A total of five doctors from Kolkata have arrived in the state on December 1st to review the malaria situation in the hilly areas of the state following reports of a fresh outbreak of the vector-borne disease.

Tripura government has also sent a team as well as medicines recently to review the malaria situation in the hilly areas of the state following reports of a fresh outbreak of the vector-borne disease, said Sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Gandacherra Bhaskar Dasgupta, here today.

Bhaskar Dasgupta further said, 157 patients including children, had been shifted to Kanchanpur, Longtarai valley and Gandacherra sub-divisional hospitals over the past fews days. There is no report of any death due to malaria this time and no complaint of dearth of medicines," he said.
Dasgupta said the Anopheles minimus mosquito family was responsible for the spread of the disease in winter. The state government has set in action second generation integrated mosquito management through fogging.

Scary malaria attacks to their only loving son, at Dolpati para, Gandachhera. TIWN File Photo

"We are making all-out efforts to manage the situation as well as to ensure medical care to all the affected people," said Dasgupta.
He, however, pointed out that the Anopheles minimus mosquitoes had become resistant to DDT a few years ago in interior locations of Uttar Pradesh, when the mosquitoes began to be dreaded and it could now be controlled by spraying second generation DDT.
Dasgupta said Anopheles minimus mosquitoes were prevalent throughout the year although their population gets a boost in the period March to August. It has been identified as a vector of malaria and sporozoite infections, the highest number of which are recorded in October.
He said the team would visit the entire stretch of the malaria-hit areas in the state to hold meetings with health officials and formulate a strategy to control a further outbreak.
SDM further said health workers had asked to make door-to-door visits in all the tribal helmets of the region with diagnostic kits and malaria preventive medicines and advisories for each of the families.
"All the primary health centres, community health centers and extension workers have been equipped on an urgent basis to arrest further spread of the disease and provide health care services to all the affected," Dasgupta added. The disease had struck Dhalai, north and south Tripura districts in 2013 and 73 people, including 54 children, had died. An estimated 2,000 others were affected by the disease.