Though the State Health Department had sounded an alarm against mosquito breeding at construction sites, it has been found that 121 construction sites are breeding malaria-causing larvae here.
The Mangalore City Corporation has issued notices to owners of some of these buildings.
Stating this at a meeting convened by Mayor Mahabala Marla here on Monday, an official said that multi-storeyed buildings were coming up in a majority of these construction sites. The Mayor had convened the meeting to seek suggestions from doctors and social workers to ensure an effective malaria control programme.
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Mr. Marla said that breeding of larvae has been found in a majority of multi-storeyed buildings. The corporation would issue notices to all such builders. If they failed to take steps to stop mosquito breeding, their licences would be cancelled.
Medical professional Srinivasa Kakkillaya said that the need of the hour was to control mosquito breeding. A team of workers, led by representatives of medical and nursing colleges, should be allowed to visit the breeding spots this week and suggest steps to the corporation to stop mosquito breeding, he added.
Community medicine departments of medical colleges could treat patients, especially construction workers, free. This should be a continuous process. Each medical college or nursing college could be allotted a fixed number of wards as their work area to carry out a sustained fight against malaria, Dr. Kakkillaya said. The Mayor, who agreed with the suggestions of Dr. Kakkillaya, said that the corporation would formulate an action plan within a week in consultation with experts of the anti-malaria cell.
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Dakshina Kannada District Malaria Officer Arun Kumar said here on Monday that a software required to record malaria cases reported in laboratories, hospitals, primary health centres is ready.
The district administration is waiting for a 10-digit common number to activate the software.