Agartala: Gastroenteritis and malaria have taken a turn for the worse in tribal dominated remote hamlets under Chawmanu rural administrative block of Dhalai district in North Tripura with five deaths reported.
The death toll in diarrhoea, viral fever and malaria has reached 129 so far this year in the area. Viral fever and enteritis have also been reported from urban pockets.
Officials here today said that seven special medical teams from the district headquarters had been dispatched to the affected hamlets with necessary medical aids.
Medicine, saline and instant malaria parasite testing kits were sent from Agartala while seven more doctors were posted in various primary health centres in the area in the past one month to contain the situation, said a top health official.
He, however, pointed out that scanty rainfall and humid weather were the main reasons for spread of the diseases in hilly locations. The entire Dhalai district had already been identified as malaria prone and become drug resistant.
Spraying of DDT, use of instant diagnostic kits in high malaria prone areas besides, distribution of 1,15,000 medicated nets and fogging machines were on.
Alarmed at the increasing incidences of deaths due to malaria, the Tripura National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDC) had conducted a comprehensive study in malaria prone areas on effectiveness of conventional medicines for malaria treatment.
The Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) categorised the state as Chloroquine (malaria drug) resistant three years back and Salpha Pyramethamine Combination, second-generation anti-malaria drugs had been prescribed for the patients.
The Plasmodium Falciparum (PF) component present in malaria affected patients and Chloroquine had become inactive for long-sufferers. New chemoprophylaxis drugs had been supplied as an immediate measure, said health officials. (UNI)