State signs MoU to eradicate malaria

Bhubaneswar: The state government Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with US-based ‘Malaria No More’ and India-based Malaria Elimination Trust with the aim to eradicate malaria.
The MoU was signed in presence of health minister Pratap Jena at the Secretariat here.
Briefing reporters later on the MoU, Jena said it was signed with the aim of making Odisha malaria-free and creating awareness about the best practices to prevent incidence of the disease in the state.
Besides helping the state government in charting strategy for eradicating malaria, the two agencies will also prepare a roadmap for creating massive public awareness and maintain coordination with both the government and non-government agencies.
Jena claimed that malaria cases had gone down 84 per cent due to the successful implementation of state government’s Daman programme. He said that as many as 1.13 crore mosquito nets medicated with larvicides were distributed this year which is why the disease took a beating in the state. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has highly praised the state government’s anti-malaria initiatives, the minister stated.
According to official sources, 3,95,004 people were affected with malaria while 89 died in 2014. In 2015, 4,36,792 people were affected and 80 lives were lost. In 2016, 4,49,697 were affected and 77 died whereas 3,52,140 were affected and 24 had died due to the disease last year. However, till July this year, only 41,937 people were reported afflicted while two deaths had occurred.