Remote dists to get mobile health units

BHUBANESHWAR: As malaria is staging a comeback stealthily in inaccessible tribal-dominated districts of the State, the Government has decided to reach out to the affected persons through mobile units. Two of the backward districts, Kandhamal and Kalahandi, are under the scanner of the State Government because of their inaccessibility and general lack of services. Health and Family Welfare Minister Prasanna Kumar Acharya announced that more mobile health units will be pressed into service in these two backward districts to cater to needs of the people in interior areas. Arrangements for this will be made by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), he said.Diarrhoea had killed more than 50 persons in Kalahandi this year while Lanjigarh area of the district is known to be prone to malaria.Many people in inaccessible pockets of Kandhamal also fall prey to malaria every year.While 15 mobile health units are already working in Kandhamal under the NRHM, seven more will be provided for the district. Similarly, three mobile health units will be pressed into service in Kalahandi.One of the units will be specifically earmarked for the Lanjigarh block.Experts expressed concern at the recently held three-day workshop organised here by the NRHM over the increasing number of deaths due to malaria. It has been estimated that more than 25 per cent deaths due to malaria take place in Orissa.Sources said that malaria has spread in all the tribal- dominated districts of the State despite steps taken by the State Government to bring it under control. Orissa now tops the list of cerebral malaria affliction which is 44 per cent of the all-India figure of over 7 lakh cases per annum.Orissa also tops the fatality rate due to plasmodium falciparum at 18 per cent followed by 15 per cent in Maharashtra, 11 per cent in Chhattisgarh and north-eastern states, nine per cent in West Bengal, five per cent in Gujarat, four per cent in Rajasthan and two per cent in Karnataka.Acharya said that out of the 191 mobilehealth units in the State, 96 have been engaged in the KBK (un-divided Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput) districts.He said that 81 units had been deployed in the non-KBK tribal districts.