KARACHI: With thousands of cases of malaria reported already in Sindh, the health authorities have conceded that the number could rise sharply in coming weeks when the monsoon season would formally end.

Officials in the Sindh health ministry said close to 14,000 cases of malaria have been reported so far this year and when the post-monsoon period would begin those numbers would sharply rise across the province — from Karachi to the remotest rural swathes.

They said malaria was a mosquito-borne disease and its outbreak normally manifested after monsoon rains.

The disease affects thousands of people every year.

Most cases caused by it are reported from rural parts of Sindh, which do not reflect the actual picture as a large number of such cases remain unreported because of ineffective official channels, an official claimed.

“We can put it this way,” he added, “dengue, also a mosquito-borne disease, mostly attacks our cities and malaria is witnessed in rural districts mainly.”

However, another official said malaria equally affected people living in the cities as they were getting dirtier by the day, thus, the lethality of the disease was also on the rise in addition to dengue.

According to official figures, more than 30,000 malaria cases were reported across the province last year.

Officially, it was 14,000 less than the malaria cases recorded in 2015.

“The numbers are fluctuating, but our efforts are to control them to acceptable levels with all resources available to us,” said an official referring to the performance of the Malaria Control Programme.

Last year’s report released by the Malaria Control Programme shows most cases were reported from Sindh’s northern districts while they were relatively low in Karachi and Hyderabad.

Experts, however, rejected such official claims.

Given the pathetic hygienic conditions in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh, such numbers did not reflect actual situation caused by malaria, experts said.

Officials, however, said they distributed mosquito nets in high-risk areas of the province, which had considerably decreased the number of cases.

“Last year, such cases were more than double than what we are seeing nowadays,” claimed a senior official.

Officials said under the Malaria Control Programme hundreds of centres were operating across Sindh where malaria patients were being treated free of cost. Besides, diagnostic centres were also functioning in different regions of the province.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2017