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ShareYour family physician's, or the nearby general practitioner's, inexperience could be as deadly as any life-threatening disease.
A recent study by a BMC panel of experts, which works to control malaria and looks into reasons causing malaria deaths in Mumbai, has come across some very disturbing figures. The Malaria Death Committee of BMC has found that of the 122 confirmed deaths caused by malaria in 2007, 68 happened because of wrong or late diagnosis by the treating general practitioners (GP).
"It means almost 60% of the malaria deaths last year could have been averted with timely treatment," said Dr Kishor Hargouli, assistant health officer, surveillance, BMC.
This year, 19 people have succumbed to malaria. Last week, two malaria deaths were reported from a construction site in Parel. An investigation by BMC revealed that both patients had gone to the same general physician, who never even suspected that it could be malaria.
"Those two patients were taken at the last moment to KEM Hospital. By then, it was too late to salvage the situation," said Hargouli. Most of the cases of malaria have been reported from Parel this monsoon.
Dr Jairaj Thanekar, executive health officer of BMC, said that a majority of general physicians had a tendency to dismiss most fever cases as viral attacks. "Very rarely do
they prescribe dengue or malaria test," he said.
However, some experts felt that the misleading symptoms of malaria made it tougher for doctors to diagnose the ailment. "Malaria also attacks without any of the conventional symptoms, like fever or shivering, showing up," said Dr BP Gaikwad, joint health director, National Institute of Virology, Pune. "The symptoms often vary depending on the manner in which the parasitedevelops and spreads."
City's general practitioners have not taken kindly to the BMC's allegation. "As a protocol, all general practitioners put fever patients on anti-malarial treatment, as Chiloquine does not do any harm," said Dr Vijay Punjabi, president, General Practitioners' Association. He added that malaria was more of a preventable disease than a curative one. "Why can't they (BMC) control it instead ofblaming it on doctors?"
Meanwhile, to cope with the mosquito menace in the city and to overcome staff crunch, BMC has called upon retired technical experts. "There are close to 2,500 blood samples of suspected malaria cases, collected from different areas and brought in to the laboratories," said Hargouli. "There are three BMC laboratories which do the test, with only 31 technicians working seven days a week throughout the monsoon season."
d_sumitra@dnaindia.net
