Biting reality: Mumbai is new malaria capital………Surendra Gangan
Mumbai: This is one tag the city could have done without. The state government on Thursday admitted that Mumbai had become the malaria capital of the nation. Out of the total cases registered in the state, 47% were from the city.
Public health minister Suresh Shetty said that though the state percentage had declined by12 %, the number of cases in Mumbai, Thane and Nashi went up by 7, 10 and 1% respectively.
Of the 22,159 people reported to be suffering from malaria till June 10, 12,393 were in the city. In 2008-09, the death toll in the state was 166, including 104 in Mumbai, the minister said.
Shetty said only 2 % of the construction work contractors were following the norms laid down by the civic body to contain malaria.
Shetty said only 2 % of the construction work contractors were following the norms laid down by the civic body to contain malaria.
There are 2,500 ongoing constructions in the city. Even though the civic body made compliance of the anti-larvae treatment compulsory for developers to get the intention of disqualification for the construction, none of the builders follow it. Now, the BMC has decided to recover the expenses from the developers, the minister said.
An official from the public health department alleged that BMC officials were protecting the developers. Criminal cases should have been registered against developers who werent following the norms, he said.
The official also claimed that five wards in the city had the maximum number of victims. Lack of sanitation, filth and contaminated water are the major reasons of the epidemic in the wards in eastern and western suburbs, he said.
The minister said 700 paramedical workers and 396 fogging workers had been appointed by the BMC to contain malaria.