Dinesh Kamath's news 'City doctors’ war against malaria is a success' that was published in Newsband

City doctors’ war against malaria is a success

By Dinesh Kamath

NAVI MUMBAI: The number of cases of malaria in Navi Mumbai has reduced considerably as compared to the past. The credit should go to Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation for carrying out frequent fumigation, awareness campaigns of the disease and prompt medical service.

To reduce the number of cases of malaria still further, the authorities of Sterling Wockhardt Hospital are considering making use of new anti-malarial drug which is used in some foreign countries.  

The campaign against malaria has proved to be a huge success since more and more people are becoming aware about the disease and how to combat in on time. Many doctors are sure that malaria will be totally eradicated from the city in a matter of few years.

Cases of malaria are more in number especially during monsoon season and hence all precautions to prevent malaria from taking birth and spreading are being taken before the arrival of monsoon.

In the past there used to be many cases of malaria pouring into the city hospitals and quite many cases would turn out to be fatal. But now the doctors of the city have managed to control this disease to a great extent and fatal cases are found to extremely few in number in the recent times. The doctors have found a method to fight malarial parasites that would cause the disease. They are able to detect this pest on time and provide perfect medication to the patient.

A city doctors said, “Our war against malaria was a losing battle for a long time. But we were determined to put an end to this disease. We experimented with many weapons and at last we met with success. We used new initiatives to prevent and treat malaria.

Malaria is a leading cause of death among the world’s children. More than 2.5 million die of malaria each year, most of them in Africa. And those who survive chronic infection suffer a combination of anemia and immune suppression that leaves them vulnerable to other fatal illnesses.

Among adults living in areas of high transmission, malaria is best thought of as a chronic, debilitating illness that robs its victims of years of productivity. A single mosquito bite can transmit one of the four parasites that cause malaria, setting in motion bouts of fever, chills, and nausea that can recur for weeks. And in some areas, people receive as many as 300 infective bites per year. According to a 1993 World Bank report, malaria represents a global public health burden second only to tuberculosis among infectious diseases. In sub-Saharan Africa, where most cases of malaria and nearly all malaria-related deaths occur, more years of life are lost to malaria than to any other disease.

Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, there is more human malaria in the world today than at any other time in history. More than 500 million people are infected with malaria worldwide; one fourth of the world’s population is at risk for infection. And the risk is rising as environmental changes and large-scale migration bring people and mosquitoes together and as parasites develop resistance to successive generations of drugs.

Malaria has confounded some of the best minds of this century. A hundred years after the discovery that mosquitoes transmit malaria, we still do not know enough about the disease to defeat it permanently. But we do have the tools to limit its spread and dramatically reduce the rate at which children are dying. Our goals should be to reduce childhood mortality from malaria by at least one fourth before the turn of the century, by half in its first decade, and by more than 90 percent in its second decade. By reexamining both the successes and the failures of the past, we can develop a more effective, comprehensive public health strategy to contain and control this lethal opponent.”