Agartala, September 11 (TIWN): Health and Family Welfare minister Badal Choudhury today admitted that delay in reacting to the malaria outbreak caused fatal damage to the control mechanism.
“We fell short of proper information from the grass root level during the initial phase of the outbreak. We have always admitted that the intensity of the outbreak could have been avoided if we could have reacted in proper time”, Choudhury said.

Speaking to reporters at the civil secretariat here this evening, the minister said that Rs. 9 crore was spent from the government exchequer for anti-malaria drug procurement, ration support to malaria affected patients, transportation of patients to hospitals and back.

He said that the state had malaria deaths in all past four subsequent years with 15 deaths in 2010, 12 in 2011, 7 in 2012 and 7 deaths in 2013. The last major outbreak of malaria in Tripura was registered in 2009.

Health minister Choudhury said that the government ‘wasn’t prepared’ for the outbreak since there was no ‘major’ impact of the disease in the past few years. “The chemists and druggists said that they didn’t have proper stocks of anti-malaria drugs over the past few years since no major demand was seen”, he said.

The minister today admitted that 88 people have died, mostly kids, from the disease outbreak, 52,828 people were infected with the malaria parasite, over 3 lakh people were admitted in different hospitals and healthcare institutions with fever indications.

He tried to take a jab at the Tripura Pradesh Congress spokesperson Dr. Ashok Sinha and said that the party was free to go and seek redressal from the High Court of Tripura.