Malaria is epidemic, insist BMC's corporators

Malaria was the hot topic in the BMC’s general body meeting on Thursday, with all corporators demanding that the disease be declared an epidemic.

The corporators said that at a time more people are getting affected by the disease, private hospitals in the city are overcharging patients. This is also because the BMC’s hospitals have not been up to the task.

When opposition leader Rajhans Singh raised the issue at the meeting, all corporators, across party lines, supported him.

“Incidences of malaria are rising among all sections of society. The BMC alone cannot treat patients. All civic hospitals are overflowing,” said Rajhans.

BJP corporator Yogesh Sagar said: “The city is becoming the capital of malaria. Forty per cent of patients (of all ailments) are of malaria, out of which 57% are from Mumbai.”

The call to declare malaria an epidemic was given by BJP group leader Ashish Shelar and Congress corporator Vinod Shekhar.
In reply, the BMC administration replied that the civic body is quite capable of tackling the menace. “We are doing very well,” said Ashish Kumar Singh, additional municipal commissioner.

“BMC teams have inspected 1,885 construction sites and screened 1,34,712 workers. We found 15,539 suffering from fever and 649 to be malarial. BMC teams have also visited slums, and found 1,766 malarial people.

“In the city and suburbs, there are 504 construction sites, and 264 builders are doing pest control on their own. At other sites, the BMC is administering larva treatment to stop mosquito breeding.”