The four-member fact-finding team of the Human Rights Forum (HRF), led by its general secretary V.S. Krishna, that visited Chaparai village in East Godavari district where 16 adivasis had died, claimed here on Sunday that the deaths were not due to food poisoning as claimed by the State government but because of malaria.
“The malaria epidemic is rampant in the Fifth Schedule region stretching from the Paderu division in the neighbouring Visakhapatnam district through the Rampachodavaram and Chinturu Agency areas of East Godavari district, and the government is trying to cover-up its lack of preparedness,” said Mr. Krishna.
As per the HRF, the deaths in Chaparai occurred between the last week of May and June 22, and the government was seeking to obfuscate this reality by trying to pass them off as due to consumption of rotten meat at a marriage gathering and contaminated water from a local hill stream.
“It food poisoning was the case, it would have happened in a short period of about 72 hours and not over a period of three to four weeks,” said Mr. Krishna.
In fact, government infrastructure was so poor in the area that the deaths had come to light only on June 23 after being widely reported in the media, he said.
As usual, government personnel had been rushed to the village and those down with fever and other ailments admitted to the Rampachodavaram Area Hospital and the district hospital in Kakinada.
Significantly, 24 of the 30 adivasis of Chaparai admitted to the Rampachodavaram Area Hospital tested positive for malaria, said HRF secretary A. Ravi.
‘Precautions not taken’
Mr. Krishna said minimum anti-malarial operations had not been undertaken in Chaparai. The first round of alphacypermethrin (ACM) anti-larval spraying was to have taken place in April but done only in the last week of May.
“Mosquito nets have not been distributed in time not just in Chaparai but in all villages of the two panchayats of Boddagandi and neighbouring Kanivada. Five of the seven borewells in Chaparai are coughing up discoloured water that is unfit for consumption. Though the Konda Reddys, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), who inhabit the villages, had brought it to the notice of officials at the Janmabhoomi programme several months ago, nothing was done,” Mr. Krishna charged.
‘No Asha worker’
Speaking to The Hindu , the HRF team pointed out that there was no community health worker (CHW), now being called accredited social health activist (Asha), in the village since 2007.
This apart, there was no regular multi-person health assistant (female) for the area since May 24 after the existing ANM had been transferred to Kutravada and additional charge given to the Kanivada ANM.
The ANM was, therefore, heavily burdened as he had a jurisdiction of 24 villages in two panchayats.
Had there been a CHW in the village, or at least two fully functional ANMs and two MPHA (male), so many deaths could have been avoided, pointed out Mr. Krishna.
