Malaria deaths in Meghalaya drop from 40 in 2015 to 3 in 2021: Officials

With malaria deaths in Meghalaya dropping from 40 in 2015 to just three last year, the state government is now moving from the intensified control phase to the elimination phase of the disease, officials said on Tuesday.

Only 27 malaria deaths were reported in the entire state in the past five years from 2017 onwards, they said.

"We have managed to achieve this milestone with early detection of the diseases at village level and complete treatment of all cases besides distributing mosquito nets in areas identified as vulnerable to the outbreak," a senior doctor in the team that handled the vector-borne control team told PTI.

Testing is free of cost, medicines are given free of cost and even mosquito nets are provided free of cost to the patients under the National Vector Borne Programme of the Government of India, she said.

An analysis of the state epidemiological situation from 1997 to 2019 revealed that the highest number of deaths due to malaria was reported in 2007 with 237 deaths in one year and out of this 117 deaths were reported in West Garo Hills district alone.

This also led to the state's Health department to adopt a model identified as "Tura model" (Tura being the district headquarters) to control the disease.

"Early detection and treatment was prioritized with the active assistance of ASHA workers. In the first year itself, out of 7,280 patients tested, 2,653 tested positive for the disease and were successfully treated and none of the patients died," the doctor said.