Tripura govt seeks BSF help to combat malaria

Agartala, Nov 27 (UNI) The Tripura government has sought help from Border Security Force (BSF) following the growing threat of malaria and other infectious diseases in the state.

State health officials said here today that the government had taken the decision to provide vital medicines and testing kits for the patients in remote areas through the BSF as the Border Outposts (BOPs) had only primary health facilities.

Owing to inaccessibility and security threat, state health officials were unable to perform their duties properly.

Consequently, the health care facilities could not be provided to the poor sections, a senior official of the state Health department said.

Tripura, as a whole, was declared as Hyper Endemic Malaria Zone and most of the remote locations were identified as malaria-prone and drug resistant areas while out of the four Malaria species, Plasmodium Vivax (PV) and Plasmodium Falciparum (PF) were highly fatal species and rampant.

Malaria can cause swift death if not treated promptly and effectively, since the PF parasite can cross the blood-brain barrier very fast, officials pointed out, adding that every BSF battalion had around eight to ten small medical centres with indoor facilities, including malaria medicines, at various BOPs.

Considering the steps taken by the BSF, the state government had approached the authorities to extend support to the villagers with logistics from the department.

Besides spraying DDT and other insecticides, the battalions had been using mosquito repellant creams and coils, wearing face masks as well as hand gloves, mosquito nets and using Chemo prophylactic medicines to prevent the clinical attack of malaria, which the state government requested the BSF to extend it to the poor sections, Inspector General of the BSF Tripura Frontier J A Khan said.

UNI