PESHAWAR: District health officers (DHOs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are finding it hard to cope with malaria due to lack of funds for carrying out larvicides spray to eliminate mosquitoes and their breeding sites.

Several DHOs complained during a recent seminar about shortage of funds for malaria control in their respective areas.

“The government has sanctioned Rs110,000 for carrying out spray, but these funds haven’t been released in full,” said DHO Nowshera. Tank district has received only Rs700 for fumigation and prevention of spread of malaria.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa public sector hospitals recorded 50 per cent of the patients with malaria symptoms, according to the health department’s record. About 80 per cent of the cases were treated for malaria on the basis of clinical examination and patients’ history of mosquito bites.

Focus now on malaria awareness drive, says official

“We are now focussing on prevention of malaria after failure to eradicate mosquitoes. The people are told to wear full sleeve dresses in the evening, sprinkle kerosene oil on pools of stagnant water in the neighborhoods and use impregnated bed net at night,” another DHO said.

He said that earlier the government had turned the malaria control programme into mosquito eradication programme that failed to produce desired results. Since mid-50s, the government has been conducting spray in May and June to eliminate larvae before they grow into mosquitoes. In 70s, the government began door-to-door spray of DDT to kill mosquitoes.

However, worldwide studies in 1998 revealed that spray was harmful to ecosystem as it killed larvae or mosquitoes and deprived fishes etc of food source. Since then, the government carries out selective spray, but unavailability of funds has hampered it in most of the endemic districts.

DHOs argue that the federal government would carry out the malaria control programme through director-general health before the 18th amendment. After the amendment, malaria control had been devolved to the province.

The health department started a project for malaria control at the health secretariat this year till the launch of a three-year programme after the coming budget.

The project director works under the health secretary instead of director-general health services, the officer responsible for implementing the government policies. Therefore, the EDOs, health, are finding it difficult to remain with the secretary office.

The DG, who is the technical head of such programmes and is required to ensure its previewed implementation, is powerless as the administrative and financial powers are held by the secretariat.

Relevant officials at the health department, however, said that the government had released emergency fund of Rs59 million to all the districts for dengue control, which can also be used for malaria control.

The causative agents of malaria and dengue are the same and require same control measures, but treatment is different, they said.

“We have supplied larvicides and equipment to the DHOs to conduct spray in selected areas in line with the WHO’s guidelines. Spray is being carried out in high-risk Malakand division and southern districts under the supervision of the DHOs,” they said.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2014