The Department of Public Health in the district has come a long way in controlling malaria in the nine endemic areas as the incidence of the disease has come down drastically this year.
Thanks to aggressive anti-malarial measures launched by the department with special focus on Rameswaram, the hotspot for malaria, the incidence of the disease in the district has come down to just 194 cases testing positive so far this year.
Giving details of the anti-malarial activities, S. Bavani Uma Devi, Deputy Director of Health Services, said anti-larval activities were carried out in all the nine endemic areas and all wells, pits and ponds were treated with larvicides.
The department had released lakhs of Gambusia fingerlings, the mosquito fish, which destroyed the larvae and effectively contained the breeding of Anopheles, the malaria mosquitoes in the waterbodies, which provided the ideal breeding ground in the endemic areas, she said.
Health inspectors carried out fogging and indoor residual spray, twice a year in all the households in the coastal Rameswaram, Mandapam, Thangachimadam, Periyapattinam, Thondi, Kilakarai, Erwadi and Valinokkam, Dr. Bavani said.
The district had reported 3,000 malaria cases in 2010, 500 more cases in the following year and the highest of 4,000 cases in 2012. Following the aggressive measures, the number of cases tested positive for malaria came down to 1,357 in 2013 and “this year, from January till now, it is less than 200,” Dr. Bavani told The Hindu .
As part of the precautionary measures, the health inspectors carried out anti-larval activities in the neighbouring districts also to prevent the malaria from entering Ramanathapuram, she said.
As a few of the 21 islands in the Gulf of Mannar could be ideal ground for breeding of malaria mosquitoes, the department proposed to depute teams of doctors and health inspectors to visit the islands and carry out anti-larval activities, she added.
