Abstract :
Assam, alone, with 2.6% of the country’s population, contributes > 5% of the total malaria cases in the country. Keeping in view the importance of malaria in the North East and its special significance to the Armed Forces the present study was undertaken to review the malaria situation in Assam.
Data on commonly used parameters of malaria surveillance including drug resistance from 2000 to 2008 were collected. Subsequently the extensive data was compiled in the form of Malaria Atlas Of Assam with choroplath maps at district and PHC level. The number of hospital admissions due to malaria in various service hospitals post 2009 have been taken as an index to measure the success of focused interventions.
District wise mean API of Assam is depicted in Table 1 whereas District wise pattern of reported chloroquine resistance is presented in Figure 1 [4] Total number of admissions due to malaria (both P Vivax and P falciparum species) in service hospitals in the state of Assam for the period 2000 to 2008 is depicted in Table 2. Month wise distribution of cases of malaria in a particular Army field formation (where the revised focused intervention strategy was first implemented) for the year 2009 along with type of infection is given in Table 3.
The service personnel deployed in NE region are especially vulnerable as they share the same anthropoecosystem as that of local population but at the same time lack the partial immunity to malaria enjoyed by local population[1].
The data collated by us has shown that the patterns of malaria incidence are not uniform across the state and varies considerably even within the same District. Having API based choroplath maps upto PHC level is of great value for malaria risk assessment for the security forces.
Keyword :
Malaria, Malaria in Assam, Choroplath Maps, API, Security Forces, Malaria Surveillance, Chloroquine Resistance