Mumbai Approach for Northeast, Assam to Control Waterborne Death Rates

Come summer and monsoon, deadly waterborne diseases causes sporadic casualties to lives which Assam including affected states of Northeast should approach Mumbai’s methodologies to curb the growing menace.

People of Northeast in general are still not aware how state’s economy is affected due to sporadic attack by waterborne diseases produced from mosquito. Contradictorily, Mumbai authority is taking a serious note to ring the bell as a wakeup call for those not taking action to drive out mosquito from breeding in their premises.

If you ask people of Mumbai to show mosquito breeding places then they will alert you about the BMC’s (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) heavy penalty. In a major combing against mosquito breeders, BMC has already extracted Rs. 20 Lakh as a penalty from the negligent Mumbai residents involved in mosquito breeding. Now why should anyone breed mosquitoes? But the fact is that you don’t have to as prolonged negligence to cleanse up contaminated wet areas invites mosquito breeding.

Contaminated stagnant wet areas are ideal places for breeding for mosquito which people hardly take to notice. Such negligent areas turn to a deadly place especially during summer and monsoon period. It is surveyed that during dry weather in summer the jammed waters from a flush of rain help trigger spread of mosquito borne diseases. Reservoir like tanks, pools, drains outlets, wet garbage area etc., in public areas are examined for waterborne diseases by BMC and varied rate penalties are imposed based on threat estimation.  

In the wake of death calls by mosquito borne diseases in an extensively growing city like Mumbai, the municipal authority has imposed an act against the mosquito breeders. It is under section 381 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act, BMC has the power to impose a penalty ranging from Rs2,000 to Rs10,000 to an individual or a body if their premises are largely infested by mosquitoes.

In this year beginning from the month of January this mosquito operation was conducted by BMC's pesticide department and unearthed 1,969 aedes aegypti breeding areas. After a major combing of 398,387 complexes by BMC from the period of January to May about 690 anopheles (malaria) breeding sites are also detected. There was no compromise for the detected breeding sites, immediate action was taken to destroy the infested sites.

Now a growing state like Assam, Northeast, annually causality cases from mosquito borne diseases are outnumbering without any major action. Till yet no tough measures are taken to lay effective plan to curb the matter from the scenario.

In Assam places including North Sibsagar, Jorhat, Lakhimpur,Dibrugarh, and Sonitpur are mapped as major Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes affected areas compared to rest of its 27 districts. Reports of 41 percentage of fatal cases out of annual 300 morbidity cases are detected in Assam alone.

Difference from Mumbai’s endemic areas is that Assam is highly affected by Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito, transmits fatal diseases like Malaria, Japanese encephalitis and Bancroftian filariasis. It is surveyed that major cases pours in from tea concentrated areas of Northeastern regions where 13 to 15 percentage are fatal malaria cases alone.

It is during the monsoon period of May till July and cold season like November when rates of Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito attack peaks. But as of now, none of the Northeastern state’s authority has not sent notices to the mosquito breeders unlike Mumbai where already 5000 notices have been issued in 2016.