Sudden rains might cause malaria surge, fears BMC

Cyclone Phyan may have spared the city, but the downpour it caused didn’t. The unexpected showers have made the civic health authorities worried about a fresh spurt in cases of malaria, which, they say, is now bound to rear its head in the city again.

Hence, as a preventive measure, the civic health department has revived its anti-malaria drive, said additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar in the standing committee meeting on Thursday. The civic health department has also begun door-to door checks.

During its October 11-12 drive, the health department had checked 6, 60,440 houses for malarial infection. A population of 31,58,154 was checked, of which more than 13,000 were found to be suffering from fever. Civic health officials even distributed medication for malaria after collecting 3,084 blood samples for malaria detection test.

The door-to-door malaria drive initiated by the civic body had thrown up some astonishing figures. Over 5,000 cases of fever were reported in a single day, of which
a whopping 1,334 tested positive for malaria. About 187 people  have died due to malaria so far,  of which 57 were in October, and 18 in November.

Malaria has been acknowledged as one of the most fatal ailments haunting Mumbai, making the BMC officials take a serious view of the menace. The civic health department had completed anti-larva treatment at all possible mosquito breeding spots, but will now have to renew its efforts again.