Malaria Strikes 500 In Chumphon

PUBLIC HEALTH alert: Malaria strikes 500 in Chumphon

Containing outbreak made difficult by villagers’ flower-hunting trips into jungle

CHUMPON: -- Nearly 500 cases of malaria have been reported in the province in a fresh outbreak of the disease, with about 50 people hospitalised.

Half of the cases had been reported in the Muang Chumphon district, while the rest were scattered around other districts, said Theves Naluan, head of the Vector-borne Disease Control Centre 11 in Chumphon.

At first, he said, about 700 people had fallen ill with what was suspected to be dengue fever, but after a number of tests, many of them were found to have malaria.

A total of 456 tested positive to the disease. “The number is quite alarming,” Theves said.

There was a village in the Muang Chumphon district where up to 136 people – or almost the entire village – have the disease, he said.

Theves said Baan Na was believed to be the centre of the disease and health authorities were trying to get the situation there under control.

However, he said, controlling malaria in Baan Na was being made more difficult because villagers regularly travel deep into the jungle around the Burmese-Thai border to collect wild plants.

“It’s not easy to follow up and get check on all the cases because of their trips into the jungle,” Theves said.

If just one person is left untreated, he said, it would be impossible to eradicate malaria from the village.

The best that health authorities could do now was to spray mosquito-killing chemicals in the villages where the cases had been reported, he said.

At least 54 malaria patients were being treated at Chumphon Khet Udomsak Hospital, said Dr Pramual Charutrakulchai, the hospital’s director. More are expected to arrive soon.

--The Nation 2005-06-06