The Hindu        04.12.2014     

Corporation short of staff to check mosquito control activity

Even as dengue fever is posing a major challenge to
health authorities, the Madurai Corporation is running short of health
inspectors to oversee mosquito control activity.

In the absence of health inspectors, the corporation is left to depend only on sanitary workers.

The worst affected areas are the 28 wards added to the corporation three years ago.

Public health sources told
The Hindu
on Wednesday that the Madurai Corporation had made a request to the
Health Department to depute its health inspectors for overseeing fogging
and sanitation works in the added areas situated on the peripheries.

“Ever
since the new wards came into being, the Health Department has been
looking after only maternal and child health, leaving other areas to the
corporation. Since we do not have health inspectors, there is no proper
monitoring of mosquito control activity,” the officials said.

The corporation has its health staff only for the 72 old wards.

Heeding
the corporation’s plea, the Health Department will deploy 15 health
inspectors for corporation work and some more are expected to come on
transfer from other places soon.

Meanwhile, the city
is gripped with fear of dengue fever as health authorities have noted
that positive cases increased in November. An emergency meeting was
convened by Collector L. Subramanian on Wednesday with officials of
public health, school education and corporation.

He,
along with Corporation Commissioner C. Kathiravan, took stock of the
fever prevalence and the measures to be undertaken for dengue control.

“We
have been continuously holding meetings to control vector-borne and
water-borne diseases. Instructions are given to local bodiesand all
departments. But the field-level reality is that dengue prevention
message has not percolated ,” the Collector observed at the meeting.

Mr. Subramanian assigned responsibility to each department while instructing them to work in coordination for effective results.

Schools will receive special priority during the anti-dengue drive.

Deputy
Director of Health Services S. Senthilkumar will be the nodal officer
and he will brief the Collector daily about fever cases and preventive
steps carried out.

In rural areas, block development officers were asked to take up the responsibility of monitoring fever cases.