PMC bana Zero se Hero

Other civic bodies want to copy the Pune Municipal Corporation for preventing malaria-related deaths for the second consecutive year

Dr Sadashiv Patole, Pune Municipal Corporation's (PMC) insecticide officer is an over-worked man these days. But for once he doesn't mind it; for the second consecutive year, Pune has remained free of malaria deaths. Patole is now flooded with work as he is entertaining requests from his peers for some wisdom on how he managed to pull it off.

At least five different civic corporations have sought advice from his department on how to manage the malaria programme in their districts (MiD-Day has been privy to these letters) after PMC success came to light.

In fact, after a recent spurt of malaria cases, Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation requested that one of PMC's malaria officers be sent to handle the situation.

"One officer from our department has been working there in an advisory capacity for three days a week since a month and a half and municipal corporations from Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Nagpur have written to us to ask us for advice on malaria control," said Patole.

From expertise on which fogging machines to purchase, to new inventions, protocols for fogging, sampling, and even manpower deployment, the department has been asked to share their expertise on handling malaria cases in the city.

Challenging task
"It is a great feeling to be lauded for our work, since usually we only get criticised. In fact this year, there have been many malaria cases all over the state, so to ensure there were no deaths or outbreak in this climate, was challenging," said Dr R R Pardeshi, medical officer, PMC.

Besides municipal corporations, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) Mumbai has also sought help from the PMC on vector control. Incidentally, while Pune registered no deaths last year, 68 people died in Mumbai of malaria while 5563 tested positive.