At a time when the city is having a sigh of relief from the sweltering heat, medical experts have warned of mosquito-borne diseases in the Telangana State, particularly on the state capital on Monday putting the Medical and Health Department on alert.
As potholes and cesspools have become a common fall, these have also become breeding grounds for mosquitoes due to the intermittent rain fall.
In what could be called an unprecedented rise in malaria cases, doctors in Osmania General Hospital (OGH) have been faced with close to 75 cases of complicated malaria in the last three months.
The officials said that the delay in the removal of mosquito breeding centres in colonies, lakes and ponds, particularly in slums and neglect in conducting fogging and spraying operations were the main reason for the outbreak of dengue case during this monsoon season.
According to UNICEF , 80.5% Indians reside in malaria-prone areas ¬¬ 22% live in areas with high transmission and approximately 30% of the affected are children.
According to state officials the lack of coordination between Health Department and the GHMC were also main reason for not controlling the vector-borne diseases in the city. Dr G Srinivas, Joint Director, Epidemics, said that 70 per cent of diseases are water-borne.
“Though the GHMC has earmarked Rs five crore for the urban malaria scheme this year, the action plan by GHMC was remain on paper only and at ground level there was no activity”, said Dr Shyam Sunder Kasapa, president, Indian Medical Association, Telangana.