The Hindu

Mangalore, Mar 9: Four people, three from north Karnataka and one from West Bengal, were found to be suffering from malaria symptoms during a visit of a voluntary agency to a construction site off Old Kankanady road here on aturday. They were immediately taken to the Government Wenlock Hospital by Suresh Shetty, an activist of a non-governmental organisation (NGO), for diagnosis and three of them tested positive.

However, health workers, who had visited the site earlier in the day, could meet with only Sharanappa (19) from Bagalkot. “They were in a hurry. They checked only those whom they met in the ground floor, collected blood samples, and left after giving a few tablets of Chloroquin to one,” Johrul Seth (19), a construction worker from West Bengal, told The Hindu.

Deepak Bolar, assistant health officer (malaria) of the Mangalore City Corporation, said the health workers were supposed to make enquiries with as many people as possible and look for malaria symptoms. The health workers were also supposed to spray fumigants at the construction site and neutralise the potential breeding sites for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The migrant workers/people such as those found at the construction site were considered “high risk” groups by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare since these groups were most likely to carry the disease with them as they travelled. Mr. Bolar said.

In order to prevent such groups from spreading the disease, a health worker was supposed to visit these people every 15 days. Johrul Seth and his co-workers from West Bengal said that they had been there for over two months and not a single health worker visited them. In two months, four Bengali labourers were treated for malaria. Residents of the nearby Dalit shanty of Kuthkori Gudda said that owing to the negligence of health workers, the disease had spread in their area. A random survey on Saturday among 38 children there showed that 28 of them had suffered from malaria in the last two months. The oldest among them was 17 years and the youngest less than one year.

Anil Kumar (30), a resident of the area, said that Kuthkori Gudda did not have a long history of malaria. “It all started two years ago, when this construction site came up,” he said. Mr. Bolar said that the builders were fined Rs. 1,000, recently. “They have spent crores of rupees on the building. What is Rs. 1,000 for them? The damage is already done,” said Raju (36), a resident suffering from the disease, along with his two children aged 12 and six.

In order to prevent Mr. Raju and his family from spreading the disease further, health workers were supposed to carry out vigorous fumigation inside his house. “Nobody has visited our house for over five months,” said Mr. Raju. Mr. Anil Kumar feels that if any other population from a posh locality of the city were exposed to such a grave risk the MCC and health officials would have rushed to their aid. “Is it because we are poor Dalits that nobody come to our aid?” he asks.

The children at Kuthkori Gudda have formed a malaria control group, “Kuthkori Gudde Makkala Parisara Sangha”. The eight-year-old secretary of the organisation, Rahul Raj, eloquently explained the various ways in which malaria spreads and the manner in which it could be controlled.