‘Malaria in Goa linked to migrant labour’

PANAJI - Linking the rising number of malaria cases in Goa to the steady influx of migrant labourers, a senior malaria research official has said the tourist hub has a long way to go to keep the vector-borne disease in check.

Speaking to reporters in Panaji Tuesday, Ashwini Kumar, deputy director of the National Institute for Malaria Research (NIMR), said the state needed to proactively think of ways to check the influx of migrant labour into Goa.

“Goa receives labourers from 16 or 17 states, some of which are highly endemic and malaria affected regions like Chhattisgarh, Orissa etc. Screening all of them is tough, there is also the incubation period to think of, when malarial symptoms do not show,” Kumar said, adding Goa was reeling under the threat of malaria for several years now.

He said with so many development activities being carried out in Goa, especially the coastal belt, it was virtually impossible for the state authorities to stop migrant labourers from entering the state.

From January to June this year alone, Goa saw 2,433 cases of malaria, with a majority of the cases concentrated in the popular beach tourism hubs of Calangute and Candolim, in north Goa, which sees a large amount of construction activity all year round.

Kumar, however, said although the state government had adopted several innovative norms in an effort to keep malaria under check, a lot more needed to be done.

“The Goa government has the unique concept of a health card, which is mandatory for all labourers - their blood samples are checked for malaria at the time of processing the card. Nearly four percent of the labourers test positive for malaria in this test,” he said.

Kumar also said the state government had procured 20,000 insecticide-laced mosquito nets which were given to the labourers through builders, in a bid to keep the vector-borne disease under check.