Agartala, July 29: A senior Japanese Encephalitis expert from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program (NVBDCP) today arrived from New Delhi to Tripura to take stock of the latest reports of Japanese Encephalitis outbreak. A highly placed source in the Department of Health and Family Welfare said this evening that Dr. VK Raina, Joint Director of the nation’s apex vector borne disease control authority, arrived to visit endemic Japanese Encephalitis endemic zones of the state.

A team of health officials headed by Dr. Raina would be visiting parts of Belonia sub-division in South Tripura district on Wednesday to take stock of the malaria outbreak, state malaria project officer Dr. Bidhu Bhusan Das said. He added that Dr. Raina would be visiting Gandacherra and Raishyabari sub-divisions in Dhalai district on Thursday. Dr. Raina’s visit in Dhalai district would be a part of his fact finding mission for presence of Japanese Encephalitis in the state, the malaria state project officer said.

A separate source in the state Health Department said later this evening that the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program official is likely to meet health secretary M Nagaraju on Friday following which he would be leaving Agartala for Delhi. A recent report of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program said that analysis of fatal cases of Japanese encephalitis or epidemic brain attack revealed that ignorance killed more children than the pathogen. Barely one death out of every 35 deaths were directly due to the encephalitis virus.

All others are preventable with prompt and early management, bringing down the  reported case fatality rate of Japanese Encephalitis from 35 percent to 50 percent to less than 1 percent. Similar degree of lowering of morbidity is also possible, the report noted. An official communiqué from the state health department today said that no further report of malaria deaths came from anywhere in the state today. The communiqué added that 388 patients were freshly found to have contacted malaria parasite today out of 1,639 who underwent blood tests during treatment at public hospitals and other healthcare institutions including Primary Health Centre (PHC), Community Health Centre (CHC), health sub-centers etc.

The total figures of patients found malaria positive this year since the beginning of institutional treatment and diagnosis at war footing since the initial outbreak on May 26 today rose to 41 thousand 383, the communiqué said. Three persons were officially admitted to have contacted Japanese Encephalitis in the state, mostly from Gandacherra and Longtraivalley sub-divisions in Dhalai district in the past week. A recent entomological survey conducted in the state found presence of culex and aedes mosquitos in several parts of the state beside anopheles moqsuitos which are known to be carriers of malaria.