Health dept. plans campaign to control spread of malaria
The Hindu
The department aims at eradicating the vector-brone disease
Although the number of malaria cases has been on a decline over the decade, the Health Department is pushing for eradication of the potentially fatal disease spread by mosquitoes. Overall, malaria cases have declined from 196 in 2011 to 15 in 2020 while one case has been reported this year to date. The goal is to fully eradicate the life-threatening disease in the U.T., officials said. In preparation for the southwest monsoon and through June, personnel of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme will engage in a month-long campaign to raise awareness on avoiding breeding sites of the vector, the female anopheles mosquito. The source sites include stagnant freshwater, rainwater, containers and empty parcel boxes.![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250217064624.jpg)
When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.