Bhubaneswar: To control live killing malaria disease, Minister Health & Family Welfare, Niranjan Pujari today urged Centre to for immediate supply of 1.56 Crores Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN) to the State.
Writing a letter to Union Health Minister Mansukh L. Mandaviya, Shri Pujari said” I would like to bring to your kind notice that Government of India had supplied 1.56 crore LLIN to Odisha in the year 2020-21 thereby protecting highly vulnerable people from malaria infection which led to showing a remarkable decline in malaria case load in the State.”
The efficacy of the LLIN is for 3 years and in 2023 these LLINs were due for replacement by the Government of India. However, the same has been delayed unduly by nearly a year, which has made the State vulnerable to increase in malaria cases, he pointed out.
Under such circumstances, Shri Pujari urged the Union Minister to immediately supply 1.56 Crore LLINs to the State to prevent a further rise in malaria case load and to sustain the efforts made by the State in reduction of the malaria burden in the country.
Odisha contributed around 18.7% of the country’s malaria tally, followed by Chhattisgarh (31,713), Jharkhand (31,140), West Bengal (26,493), Tripura (22,412), Maharashtra (16,164) and Uttar Pradesh (13,585), according to the National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control (NCVBDC).
Odisha topped the list of states for malaria cases in 2023 with nearly 42,000 occurrences, marking a comeback in the State despite the government keeping it under control through a host of measures.
The State recorded 23,770 malaria cases in 2022, in 2023 the numbers shot up to 41,971. However, the number of deaths came down to four in 2023 compared to five casualties in 2022.
After the State reported its highest ever number in 2016 with 4.44 lakh cases, the Odisha chapter of the National Vector-borne Disease Control Programme in 2017 launched a special drive named ‘Durgama Anchalare Malaria Nirakaran’ (malaria elimination in less accessible areas), or ‘DAMaN’.
DAMaN targets high-transmission, malaria ‘pockets’ that were identified in hard-to-reach areas of the state, spread over 23 districts. DAMaN comprises half-yearly malaria screening of populations living in villages and hamlets in inaccessible areas with historically high malaria burden. A major feature of the programme comprised distribution of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN) to large sections of the state population
Earlier, Health Minister Niranjan Pujari had written a letter to Shri Mandaviya for supply of Anti TB drugs from the Central TB Division, Government of India.
