VIJAYAWADA : The pesky mosquitos are back with the monsoon rains, spreading mosquito-borne diseases in Krishna district. Till date, 343 malaria cases have been registered in the district. As man as 47 dengue cases were also registered in the district. Of all the 343 malaria cases registered so far in the district, 86 are in Vijayawada city.Viral fevers, malaria and dengue cases are unabated in different parts of Krishna district like Jakkampudi, Gollapudi, Ibrahimpatnam and Vijayawada rural.
The district health officials are gearing up with a full-fledged programmes to fight the viral fevers. “As of now, the urban areas of the district don’t have high risk of malarial fevers, but the rural areas and suburbs are prone to viral fevers. Of all the 343 registered malaria cases, 257 alone are from Jakkampudi and Gollapudi regions.
To fight against malaria, we are conducting various awareness programmes in schools and distributing pamphlets door-to-door, conducting sanitation drives in educational institutions and civic areas. Declaring every Friday as dry day, all the stagnant water in the localities will be cleared and every Saturday, we are conducting awareness campaigns,” said Y Kameshwar Prasad, DMHO, Krishna district.
Both private and government hospitals in the district witnessed flow of patients suffering from various viral fevers.
The authorities are spraying M.L oil and other chemicals once in a week on stagnant and polluted water. This process curbs further development of mosquitoes’ larva. Till date, over 900 oil balls have been released since the first week of June.“The spraying of ML oil and fogging have been done once in a week and oil balls and other chemical procedures have been carried out once in every three days. Public should ensure that there is no stagnant water or polluted places in their surroundings. As per our priority schedule, we are carrying out the anti-larval measures and trying to control the mosquitos,” said A Nookaraju, biologist.
Under the chemical treatment, oil balls would be dropped in stagnant water to control the growth of larva. To control the mosquito eggs in the water bodies, Gambusia fish has been released in the freshwater belts and wells. Each Gambusia fish will eat 100-130 mosquito eggs in a day. Large number of fishes were released in the areas Satyanarayanapuram, Singhnagar.
Measures like fogging, indoor residual spray, pyrethrum indoor space spray, outdoor wall spray are being taken up by the VMC.