India Warns Of Malaria Epidemic, 73 Dead

June 11, 2002

GUWAHATI, India, (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from malaria in India's northeastern Assam state where 73 people have died of the disease in the past six weeks, a health official said on Tuesday.

Officials said the disease assumed epidemic proportions after a prolonged spell of heavy rain that created vast pools of stagnant water and provided a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which spread malaria.

"At least 400,000 people tested positive," B.K. Baishya, Assam's chief malaria control officer, told Reuters in Guwahati, the state's main city.

He said health workers and volunteers were spraying insecticides across the tea-growing and oil-rich state as part of a mosquito elimination drive. Authorities have also supplied chloroquine tablets to villagers to prevent more people dying of the disease.

"We have formed more than 150 rapid response teams made up of doctors, nurses and pathologists to take care of people affected by malaria," Baishya said.

Malaria kills about 100 people in Assam every year, while more than 1,200 people died of the disease in 1995. Last year 122 people died of malaria in Assam.

Medical experts say there are 300-500 million cases of malaria every year worldwide, 90 percent of them in Africa.

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