Gaya: The health dept is going to launch a preventive drive against filaria in the district. Aimed at awareness creation and administration of preventive medicine, the drive is scheduled to begin on Feb 10.According to civil surgeon Dr Raja Ram Prasad, there is much misconception about the preventive medication for filaria prevention and as such community leaders are required to come forward and join the special drive being launched for the purpose.
As part of the drive, a mega camp is scheduled on Feb 11. In the camp, health officials will administer preventive medicine to the targeted groups. For the next two weeks, volunteers will move door to door to ensure that the medicine is administered to the left over people and also to make it universal.According to district immunisation officer Dr Enamul Haq, the preventive medicine will be administered to 44.39 lakh pre identified people in the district spread over 22 blocks and seven urban primary health centres. The medicine can not be administered in empty stomach.No less than 3,765 school premises will be used for medicine administration. As many as 2,117 teams, 212 supervisors, 730 ANMs and 323 community health officers have been associated with the mega drive.Health officials have made it clear that the medicine will not simply be handed over to the intended beneficiaries rather the health workers will ensure its intake it in their presence.Children below the age of two, pregnant women and people having serious health issues have been exempted from the purview of the drive and no medicine will be administered to these sections.As per WHO, filaria is caused by infected mosquito bite and it is a major cause of physical disability world wide. In several cases, people suffering from filaria face social discrimination as well. It also adversely impacts the capacity to work.According to the civil surgeon, the medicine to be administered for filaria prevention was fully safe and people having BP issues, diabetes, arthritis and other common diseases should take it unhesitatingly as it does not have any adverse effect.The civil surgeon revealed that post medication, if anybody felt dizzy or develops vomitting tendency, they need not worry as such symptoms only confirm the presence of the filaria virus in the body and the medication will eliminate such viruses.Rapid response teams are being deployed at the block-level to meet any unforeseen situation, he said.
