India Fights Malaria, Witing for World Bank FUnds

July 21, 2001 Comments Off

INDIA FIGHTING MALARIA, WAITING FOR WORLD BANK FUNDS

DUMKA, India, Jul 19, 01 (CWNews.com/Fides/SarNews) – World
Bank funds should be available to combat malaria in Jarkhand
State in India– a new state created in 2000, made up of 18
former districts of Bihar state–but no one knows where the
money has gone and the number of malaria patents continues
to escalate. And the Catholic Church is struggling to meet
the needs of an epidemic which strikes mainly among native
tribal people.

According to statistics available, some 6 million people
suffered from malaria in 2000. It is estimated that to date
about one million people, particularly in the Dumka and
Jamshedpur regions, are affected by malaria which has
caused panic among the residents of these areas.

The local Church is doing its best fight the epidemic which
broke at the onset of the monsoon season. The crisis was
precipitated because there was an inadequate amount of
pesticides to be sprayed in the vulnerable areas during the
anti-malaria campaign last month.

Bishop Julius Marandi of Dumka told SAR News that Santal
and Paharia tribals of his diocese were highly vulnerable
to the disease. He said that in remote areas, because of a
lack of blood testing facilities, patients were merely
treated on the basis of symptoms and the different kinds of
malaria, mainly the fatal ones, were not diagnosed.
“Cerebral malaria is the most dangerous and if is not
promptly and effectively treated, it can cause death.
Tragically, 90 percent of the cases in our diocese are
cerebral malaria,” the bishop said.

Father Alfonse Raj, who works among Paharia and Santal
tribals in the diocese, said that death figures issued by
government agencies were usually misleading and extremely
underestimated. “There are thousands of malaria patients in
remote hilly villages whose cases are never recorded by any
government office. Many of them die too, but their deaths
are buried in oblivion.” The diocese runs about 50 health
clinics with trained nurses who work hard to reach all the
patients. “Still we are not able to reach many places. But
we are striving to contain the catastrophe,” Bishop Marandi
added.

Sunil Kumar Tiwary, a local journalist, has said the
Jarkhand government has done little to fight the epidemic
which “threatens over 15 million people, mainly tribals of
the ten most malaria-prone districts of the state.” He
recalled that these districts should be covered by the
World Bank-funded Enhanced Malaria Control Project (EMCP).
“The EMCP funds to combat the epidemic were assigned, but
what happened to the money nobody knows and the number of
malaria patients continues to escalate,” he said.

According to the group Doctors without Borders, malaria is
endemic in 100 countries and it strikes about 300 million
people every year. In sub-Saharan Africa malaria is the
most frequent cause of death.