Yogi: UP on verge of controlling malaria
CM says govt will soon make formal announcement of state being kala-azar-free
LUCKNOW : Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday said that the state was on the verge of controlling malaria and will soon make a formal announcement of being kala-azar-free.
Adityanath said this to Team-9, the team of top officers of the state engaged in Covid control and other management in the state, at a Covid review meeting he held at Shastri Bhawan (government secretariat).
Talking about other infectious diseases, the CM said the state could control encephalitis by adopting inter-department coordination.
“UP has attained achievements in controlling communicable diseases and the latest results indicate that malaria and kala-azar diseases are near eradication. Malaria cases rate is barely 1 per 1,000 of the population while kala-azar is barely one case per 10,000 of the population in 22 kala-azar identified districts,” said a government statement quoting Adityanath after the meeting.
“So, the state will be free of kala-azar and will be able to fully control malaria soon. Soon, UP will make a formal announcement of being free of kala-azar,” said Adityanath.
In kala-azar (Visceral leishmaniasis) disease, a parasite causes sickness after migrating to internal organs such as the liver, spleen and bone marrow. If left untreated, the disease almost always results in death. People get the disease from the bites of sandflies. Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite. The parasite is spread to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes.
With Covid cases registering a spike in NCR, chief minister Yogi Adityanath stressed on preventive measures and significantly increasing testing to combat the threat in the state.
He asked officers to keep all prevention and treatment set-up fully effective and scale-up testing with a minimum of 1.5 lakh tests each day.
“Now, most of the Covid patients need no more than home isolation and thus all they should be given all necessary information about the home isolation protocols. More fresh cases are being reported in the NCR (National Capital Region districts of UP) and Lucknow. Under the circumstances make mask-wearing effective in these districts and make people adhere to safety protocols,” he said.
UP, in the last 24 hours, reported 203 fresh cases of Covid and the total active cases rose to 1,316 across. A total of 31.17 crore doses of vaccine had been administered, underlined the meeting.