AGARTALA, July 5 (TIWN): Tripura Health Minister Badal Choudhury today refuted charges of wrong medication adopted in the anti-malaria treatment protocol used by the state Health Department and said that the state government adopted the latest treatment protocol suggested for Tripura alongwith other states of the NE.

Addressing the media at the Agartala Press Club here this afternoon, Health Minster Choudhury said that the state government didn’t receive any communication from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare banning the use of ACT-SP, a second generation drug previously used for malaria prevention in the NE.

Tripura Pradesh Congress earlier claimed that the second generation drug was declared resistant against malaria in most NE states.

“If Congress is having any such document, they might communicate it with the state government. They might as well write to the central government accusing us or wrong medication”, the minister said. According to the latest statistics, a total of 1, 18,947 patients suffering with fever were diagnosed in hospitals, Primary Health Centers, Community Health Centers and health sub-centers since largescale institutional treatment started from June 13, the minister said. Around 90 percent of them sixty people who died in the outbreak till date were from the indigenous communities living in areas under the jurisdiction of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC).

Out of 20,256 patients diagnosed to have contacted malaria parasite across the state, only 0.29 percent died. The government was successful to check the outbreak from further escalation, Choudhury said.

“Had we been using wrong medication and wrong treatment protocol, how come the disease was contained?” he quipped. The minister lashed at the Congress and said that the Congress party was trying to create panic among the distressed people.

“We are making sure that institutional treatment is reached to each and every malaria patient of the state. In areas where our doctors couldn’t move on road, we have deployed choppers as a part of the special initiative”, Health Minister Choudhury said. A three member team from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program recently visited the state. They collected samples from distant tribal hamlets in the worst malaria affected areas and supervised treatment adopted in the hospitals. “They didn’t say we were using wrong medication”, the minister claimed.