LARKANA: On the instruction of higher authorities, the Deputy Director General, Malaria, Dr Syed Mushtaq Shah Lakyari finally arrived in Larkana on Saturday, distributed 3000 doses of medicines and foreign mosquito nets to prevent malaria and dengue disease at the District Health Office (DHO) and presided over a meeting with the officials of the local Health Department.
In the meeting, the Deputy Director General of Malaria and Dysentery Program instructed the doctors of Sindh to run a campaign to prevent malaria and dengue cases and to provide medicines to the patients so that malaria and dysentery can be eradicated from the district.
Speaking to the media later, the Deputy Director General of Malaria and Dengue Program Sindh Dr. Mushtaq Shah Lakyari said that on the special instructions of higher health department officials 3000 doses of drugs and Australian mosquito nets (number of which was not given) were handed over to the incharge DHO today to prevent dengue and malaria. He said DHO Dr. Athar Hussain Shah has been entrusted with medicines that will be absorbed in water and will not cause any harm to animals, and medicines will benefit patients the most, he claimed.
He said that due to stagnation of rainwater in Larkana for a long time, the incidences of malaria cases have increased manifold, but the health department has brought the disease under control. He said that WHO, UNICEF, SARSO and other institutions are cooperating fully with the health department as coronavirus was also controlled in such a way that not only Larkana but the entire Sindh province benefited. He said that they will soon be able to control malaria forgetting the fact that malaria season will soon end naturally as the weather has already started changing during which mosquitoes are eliminated.
He said that there is a need for an awareness campaign among the people on how to protect against malaria and dengue, for this, along with informing the media, workshops, seminars and programs will be conducted so that people can be protected from this disease. Later he visited Dengue Ward established in Chandka Medical College Hospital along with Dr. Gulzar Tunio. Nobody asked him where the malaria program was during the past two months when the people of all age groups were constantly hit by malaria and dengue.