THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Health Department’s plan to eradicate malaria from the state by 2020 is likely to miss its target due to the absence of an exhaustive study into the effectiveness of insecticides in controlling the mosquito population.
It was in April the department announced its ‘Malaria Prevention Campaign’ with a deadline of 2020 for its eradication. The absence of such a study is also said to have its impact on reducing dengue-related mortality and morbidity in the state.
“When it comes to malaria control and elimination, there exists the challenges of insecticide resistance, gene deletions and parasite drug resistance,” an officer with the Health Department told Express. “But the state is yet to conduct a study on any of these challenges. Thus putting a big question mark on the effectiveness of mosquito prevention mechanisms in practice.”
Meanwhile, Dr V Meenakshi, state programme officer, National Vector Borne Disease Control, said a decreasing trend of malaria cases is there in the state and mostly it is dealing with imported malaria cases. “Indigenous malaria cases are almost rare in the state. But there are imported malaria cases, thanks to the influx of the migrant population,” said Meenakshi.
When asked about the probability of the existence of mosquitoes resistant to insecticides, she said the ongoing mosquito reduction mechanisms like fogging and spraying have so far turned to be effective in the state.
She further said, “The Health Department had conducted a study on vector control in 2016. But it is not a foolproof one. Though we have plans to update the study the unavailability of insecticide resistance kits provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) is an impediment.” At the same time, Dr Anish T S, associate professor, Department of Community Medicine, Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College, said as part of the dengue collaborative study with the WHO, chances are there to study insecticide resistance, gene deletions and parasite drug resistance among mosquitoes.
Earlier, WHO in its World Malaria Report 2018 highlighted the emergence of parasite resistance to antimalarial medicines and mosquito resistance to insecticides and inadequate performance of health systems were a cause for worry in malaria control.
As per the statistics available with the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, the state has recorded a total of 771 malaria cases this year of which 755 were imported cases and the rest falls under the category of indigenous cases.
As per data with the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, the state has recorded a total of 771 malaria cases this year
Of these, 755 were imported cases and the rest falls under the category of indigenous cases.