Mangalore City Corporation ropes in youths to fight against malaria

MANGALORE: The Mangalore City Corporation's fight against vector-borne diseases will involve younger blood when it kick-starts a massive door-to-door awareness drive against malaria from August 26. The civic body has decided to rope in the services of about 3,000 volunteers from 17 National Service Scheme (NSS) units across the city for the drive.
City corporation commissioner K Harish Kumar said NSS volunteers would be trained to spread the message on malaria effectively.The volunteers along with respective area corporators and officials will visit households across the city and distribute pamphlets on malaria. "This has been done based on a survey carried out by MCC about incidences of malaria in the city," he added.
Dr CM Sudarshan, health officer, MCC, said, "Despite malaria haunting the city for the past two decades, it is surprising that there is lack of awareness about how the disease spreads. The drive will also identify potential malaria breeding areas in the households or their immediate vicinity and steps will be taken to destroy them. "
Dr Sudarshan added that during the survey, mosquitoes were found breeding in about 40% of the 5,000 households that health surveyors from the department of health and family welfare visited in July. "Most of the mosquitoes were aedes aegypti that causes dengue and not the malaria-causing female anopheles mosquitoes," Dr Sudarshan added. According to him people are more concerned about unattended garbage across the city for they think this is the cause of malaria. MCC commissioner also said the civic body would not resort to fining residents straightaway as the need of the hour was to solicit people's support in the fight against the disease.