03 May 2004	Monday	12 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, May 2: At a time when malaria cases are on the rise in the city due to invasion of mosquitoes, the city government's much-trumpeted fumigation campaign has failed to check the menace.

Although the CDGK's town-wise fumigation campaign ran from April 10 to April 30 in all the 18 towns of the city, residents of various towns said that they got no respite from mosquitoes.

"How can a fumigation campaign be successful when the staff associated with malaria-control programme do not concentrate on spraying the breeding grounds of mosquitoes, which have emerged at various places in my town owing to overflowing gutters and sewerage lines," a resident of North Nazimabad Town remarked.

Expressing similar views, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal's Hassan Square Apartment building said that one could see a number of mosquito breeding grounds all around Hassan Square Apartment Building and the nearby Cosy Homes, as the water gushing out from a leaking pipeline on a service road, near Hassan Square, often remained accumulated near the boundary walls of both the housing projects.

However, an official associated with the malaria-control programme, on the condition of anonymity, told Dawn that it was impossible to bring an end to the menace of mosquitoes with only 12 fumigation vehicles available with the programme.

Although, during the campaign, all the fumigation vehicles, along with staff concerned, were placed at the disposal of each town for one day, it was not possible to carry out the campaign in just one day, mainly because the towns consisted of eight to thirteen union councils and spread over an area ranging from 90 to 100 square kilometres, he said.

Besides, the staff of the programme was unable to spray insecticides in major nullahs of the city, which were major breeding grounds of mosquito larva, as most of these places had already been sold out and a large number of shops and markets had been constructed there, he added.

Admitting that only 12 fumigation vehicles were insufficient for undertaking the fumigation campaign, union council Nazim Sajjad Dara, who was also associated with the campaign, told Dawn that the CDGK had proposed the purchase of 20 more fumigation vehicles in its next budget.

"If our proposal is approved, we will hand over two fumigation vehicles, along with the staff, to each town," he added.

When asked how much funds had been allocated for the fumigation campaign, he said that around Rs200,000 were spent on the drive, adding that though about Rs400,000 were allocated for the purchase of chemicals and vehicles' fuel in the current fiscal year's budget, a major chunk of this amount had already been consumed in carrying out insecticide sprays in various union councils by the programme staff in a haphazard manner.

Emphasising the need for undertaking fumigation campaign in all the 18 towns of the city simultaneously, he said that the trend of carrying out fumigation campaign in different union councils at different periods could not yield desired results.

He was of the opinion that such a campaign should be carried out, simultaneously in all the 18 towns of the city. It was strange to know that although the fumigation campaign in which 'larvicide' treatment of sprinkling the 'Fenthion' was applied was over, residents of most of the towns expressed their ignorance about any such campaign, saying that they had not seen even a single fumigation vehicle in their towns.

Although an officials of the CDGK's media management group asserted that the campaign was launched in all the 18 towns of the city strictly in accordance with its plan, residents of various towns complained that the menace of mosquitoes continued to persist in their localities.