Nagpur: Despite all awareness campaigns and drives against the dreaded AIDS disease, the picture remains sorry in Nagpur district. A latest statistics that came out in an RTI reply came as a big shocker. It is revealed in the reply at at least 500 people lost their lives in Nagpur district in just 2 years. Unbelievable it may sound but it true.
A media report quoted the RTI reply as saying that about 508 patients died due to deadly disease in the last two years from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2016, in Nagpur district. In the same period, about 2,344 persons were diagnosed with it.
The query regarding number of AIDS patients in these three districts was asked by senior activist Abhay Kolarkar to Maharashtra Health Department. However, the replies were provided by different officials. Nagpur’s statistics were provided by civil surgeon at general hospital, while administrative officers at civil hospitals submitted the information about Wardha and Bhandara.
According to Kolarkar, these were just official figures of number of AIDS patients and their deaths. There were several unreported cases of the persons suffering from the disease, particularly from the lower strata of society, who didn’t even afford costly medical treatments. He claimed that there was an alarming increase in the number of AIDS patients in last few years, due to apathy in creating awareness about the disease by the government officials.
The RTI reply also revealed that grants received by official for AIDS Control Programme in various districts in these two years were also not fully utilized. The Nagpur district received grants of Rs17.11 lakh of which only Rs12.88 lakh was spent while another Rs91,500 was utilized on the awareness campaigns. Similarly, in Wardha, the grants received were to the tune of Rs13.29 lakh of which Rs8.50 lakh was utilized. In Bhandara, the district administration received grant of Rs15.70 lakh and Rs11.70 lakh were spent, of which Rs41,500 were on publicity.
The RTI reply further informed that Nagpur and Gadchiroli districts had the most number of people infected with malaria and dengue in Vidarbha, in last two years. Moreover, no funds were spent on creating awareness for malaria and dengue was made in most districts last year except Nagpur and Wardha.
The reply to dengue and Malaria cases in five districts of Nagpur, Bhandara, Gondia, Wardha, Chandrpaur and Gadchiroli was provided by assistant director Dr Milind Ganvir. He informed that about 11,144 people in Nagpur and 9,163 in Gadchiroli were infected with malaria and number of deaths stood at seven and four respectively. However, the figures are lower as compared to 2015 when 38,347 and 34,206 people were infected with the diseases in both districts. Deaths were also high with the former totalling to 20 and the latter at 11.
