As authorities continue to tackle the COVID-19 crisis in Mumbai, they now have to contend with the growing number of malaria cases in the city. Wards like G South, G North, M East, and E wards are seeing the most cases of malaria, leading to concern among civic body officials. Some of these regions are also beginning to recover from COVID-19 cases, making matters potentially worse.
As per data put out by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), there were a total of 1,137 malaria cases in August 2020, while the same period last year saw only 824 cases. Last month, two deaths were reported from the G North and M East wards in what was said to be a combination of COVID-19 and malaria.
Civic officials believe that one of the biggest challenges right now is that a lot of homes in slum pockets are closed as its residents have gone back to their natives. This means that these vacant homes are acting as fertile breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
“In slums, people often store water in buckets and tanks. Now, as they have left, the unused water has become breeding grounds for mosquitoes. We can’t break open and fog their houses,” Chief of the Insecticide Department, Rajan Naringrekar said.
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He added that the same obstacles are faced in construction sites that remain abandoned as a consequence of COVID-19 lockdowns. Keeping these factors in mind, the BMC will conduct a ‘Construction Drive’ wherein closed construction sites will be inspected while workers (if available) on the site will be examined for malaria.
The civic body’s Executive Health Officer, Dr Mangala Gomare, said - “We have increased door-to-door surveillance in high-risk areas. Also, if anyone tests positive for malaria, we immediately conduct the rapid antigen test to find out if the person has Covid-19.”
On the brighter side, cases of dengue have reportedly shrunk within civic body limits. August 2020 only saw 10 cases of dengue as compared to 134 in August last year. However, authorities expect dengue as well as leptospirosis cases to see a bump this month as a result of monsoon flooding in several parts of the city.
The BMC has asked citizens to take Doxycycline for leptospirosis, particularly if they have moved through flooded areas at any time. The civic body has so far surveyed around 6,71,663 homes while the authorities said that 35,021 adults in the regions have been provided Doxycycline as a precautionary measure.
Also read - More Than 35,000 Mosquito Breeding Sites Cleared To Prevent Dengue And Malaria
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