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ShareMumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to integrate its pulse polio campaign with the drive against malaria. This integrated approach will materialise from November 9 to 15. A working plan has been prepared for the health ambassadors, BMC's health officials, to visit 33 lakh households in the next 15 days. They have been trained at Nair Hospital.
According to a recent survey, there has been a 73% increase in malarial deaths in the past three months and 181 people have died so far this year. A total of 175 deaths were reported from Jan 1, 2009 to Aug 31, 2009. The figure last year during this period was 118. Six malarial deaths were reported from November 1 to 6.
At least 10,000 patients have been admitted in hospitals, both civic-run and private, so far.
"Those health workers going for pulse polio awareness will carry messages which say not to neglect fever. According to our findings, if left untreated, this can prove as fatal as H1N1. People were attentive during the H1N1 epidemic and would admit themselves if they had symptoms of breathlessness and
fever," said Manish Mhaiskar, additional municipal commissioner (western suburbs).
Mhaiskar said the health ambassadors will be provided with medication like chloroquine and paracetamol to give presumptive treatment to those who suffer from fever.
"Then they will be directed to surveillance teams who will take slides and then give a radical treatment. According to our survey, late entries in the past three months led to maximum deaths, as they came on the seventh day of the fever," he said.
