Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (VM)

Udupi, Jun 29: The district recorded 192 cases of malaria in urban areas in June and 348 cases of malaria in rural areas from January-June, Prabhakar Sharma, chief executive officer of zilla panchayat on Thursday June 28.

Sharma was speaking on a workshop jointly organized by zilla panchayat and department of health and family welfare on prevention of malaria, Rajathadri in Manipal.

Speaking on the occasion, he said the main reason behind the spread of malaria is lack of drainage facilities, as in Kaup, Padubidri, Brahmavar and other places which fall under the National Highway.

Lack of drainage system in multi-storied buildings coming up in towns and villages has also added to people's woes. There are 57 construction sites in Udupi, Manipal and Karkal and most of the construction workers are from Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal. Blood tests were done on as many as 3,010 workers and most of them carried malarial parasite, said Dr Ashok.

The district recorded 17 dengue cases out of which 15 persons were originally from Udupi working in Bangalore.

Sharma also stressed that construction work should follow regulations under ‘Town and Planning act’ as decided by the district administration.

The programme was inaugurated by Katapady Shankar Poojary, zilla panchayat president and chief guest was Kiran Kumar, president of City Municipal Council.

Sumalatha Shetty compered and Josna Aranna proposed the vote of thanks.

Kumar, assistant deputy commissioner, Jyothi Shetty, Bharathi Chandrashekar, Gokul Das Nayak, Junjanna, Ramachandra Bhayari among others were present.