PESHAWAR, July 17: Malaria is likely to afflict more people because the government has stopped fumigation and the public sector hospitals lack staff and resources to cope with the problem, health department officials have told Dawn.

“The monsoon rains coupled with heavy floods in the province are bound to cause spread of malaria,” said officials.

Officials said there was no authentic data about deaths caused by malaria but the figure was estimated at 2,000 per year.

The government last year allocated Rs4 million for the Roll Back Malaria Programme in the province. The allocation for the current year is yet to be made. The officials said the government reduced the allocation every year as in 2003-4 it was Rs6.6 million and in 2004-5 Rs6 million.

Of the 24 districts in the province, 10 have been declared high-risk on the basis of the annual parasite incidence report. They are: Bannu, Lakky Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Karak, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Malakand, Swabi and Mardan.

The anti-malarial medicines given to the districts was insufficient, the officials said.

Dera Ismail Khan, Lakky Marwat, Malakand and Swabi districts had the highest risk but they where yet to get any special attention, they said.

“There is no fund to fumigate water pools and heaps of garbage to stop the breeding of mosquitoes,” they said.

They said they were preparing place strategies to diagnose malaria patients early and provide them prompt treatment. Any patient coming to health facilities in the high-risk districts would be tested for malaria in 24 hours and given a dose of chloroquine, they said. In case of relapse, the patients would be given another dose of tablets and if the problem persisted, they would be hospitalized, the officials said.

Only 20 supervisors worked in 92 union councils of Peshawar districts for malaria control, officials said, adding that the situation was worse in the rural areas.