The drug does not have any serious side effects and can be consumed by everyone except for children below two, pregnant women and people with serious medical problems, he said. The drug should not be consumed on empty stomach and children from two to five should consume one tablet, two tablets for age group six to 14 and 3 tablets for people above 15, he addedThe programme will be in action in Mangalore City, Puttur and Bantwal and 52 health centres in the three taluks and 60 wards in Mangalore city will be covered under the programme.
Vomiting, fever, swelling of legs and breasts are the common symptoms noticed when one is affected with the disease and if proper medication is not taken in time, the symptoms may remain, said Malaria Control Officer Dr Arun Kumar.
About 13 cases of Filaria have been noted in 2010 and it spreads with the ‘Culex’ mosquito, he said and added that the drug will not be administered in Belthangady and Sullia taluk as such cases are not reported. Asha workers, health officials and Anganwadi workers will visit the houses on January 10, 11, 12 and administer the drug, he informed.
In Udupi
District Health Department will be organising ‘National Filaria Day’ on January 10, said DHO Ramachandra Bairy speaking at a press meet. He informed that DEC and Albendazole tablets will be distributed free of cost on January 10, 11 and 12 across the district. The programme has been launched this year in nine districts of the State. Udupi, Mangalore, Karwar, Yadgiri, Gulburga, Beedar, Bijapur, Bagalkota and Raichur are the districts in the state where the programme is being taken up. As many as 18 Filaria fresh cases were reported in 2010, of which 16 were detected in Udupi CMC limits. Two cases were reported from Kundapur. The tablet distribution programme is conducted since 2004 in the district.
There are as many as 978 cases detected according to the survey done after 2004 and in Udupi there are 627 cases, in Karkala there are 91 cases and in Kundapur there are 250 cases, he said. There are about 31,03,182 people in Udupi who require DEC drugs and about 11,21,339 people who require Albendazole tablets as per the data for mass drug administration.