Chapter on kala-azar in school textbooks soon

PATNA: Bihar records highest kala-azar patients in the country accounting for almost 60% of all kala-azar cases in India. While the state registered 15,000 kala-azar cases in 2011, as many as 50 patients died due to the disease the same year. In 2010, Bihar recorded over 23,000 kala- azar cases with 87 casualties while in 2009 the state recorded there were 21,318 cases.
India accounts for 50 per cent of the global burden of visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a kala-azar vector, with majority of the patients coming from Bihar particularly from poor rural communities. The state which has achieved great success in checking polio, a more focused approach is needed to combat Kala-azar, the poor man's disease.
Principal secretary, health, Amarjeet Sinha said, "The state government has launched a massive anti-kala- azar strategy to check the spread of sand fly vectors in 16-affected districts. DDT sprays on massive scale would be taken up from February 15 -March 3 in the state." Sinha, however, said the Union government has been delaying the supply of miltefosine drug for kala-azar treatment. We have had a talk with the Union ministry of health and family welfare in this regard and have asked them to expedite the process," Sinha added.
The government had earlier constituted a task force headed by former Union health minister and BJP leader Dr C P Thakur, an acknowledged kala-azar expert, to work for eradication of the disease.
The state government has also decided to observe kala-azar week from March 15 to March 21 every year with special programmes to be organized in all the affected districts.
Health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey will also undertake a 'padyatra' in kala-azar-affected areas during his ongoing "Jan Swaysthya Chetna Yatra". Mass awareness programmes would also be taken up to combat the disease.
Taking awareness programme further, the Bihar government has decided to introduce a chapter on Kala- azar in text-books in government run schools across the state.
The worst Kala- azar hit areas of Bihar are the northern districts of Vaishali, Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Sheohar, East Champaran and West Champaran.
The state was hit by kala-azar in an epidemic form in 1991 when 2.50 lakh cases were reported in a single year.