MUZAFFARGARH, June 3: The Communicable Dieseases Control (CDC) programme has been shelved for the last 10 years and its employees are getting salaries without any work in this district, Dawn has learnt.

A health official said the programme began in 1964 to control communicable diseases.

Under the programme, officials with manually-operated spray machines visited house to house to spray pesticides to kill mosquitoes and other insects spreading malaria. Even though the government sidelined the project but did not launch any other fumigation programme to control communicable diseases.

Muzaffargarh district stood top in Punjab with more malaria-related cases in 2006 while it was third in 2007 after Bahawalapur and Lodhran, the Health Department source said.

He said CDC officials, under “Malaria Eradication Programme”, also checked people with slides to know the number of malaria patients in every house freely once a year. These staffers used to supply tablet chloroquine to every one. In 1977, the programme was named as ‘Malaria Control Programme’ and in 2000 the programme got another name -- Malaria Programme.

There are 62 officials of the shelved CDC Programme in the district. In Mahmoodkot union council, there are two CDC officials who are enjoying all government perks without doing any work. This union is home to more malaria patients then those in other union councils in the district.

This union council is situated along the Muzaffargarh canal and water loggings provide ideal breeding grounds to mosquitoes. Over all Muzaffargarh is also breeding place of mosquitoes as on its eastern side flows the Chenab river and Indus river on its western frontiers. Flooding and spillages leave the water stagnant much to the delight of mosquitoes and other insects.

Syed Charagh Hassan, a CDC head officer, said to Dawn that he had written many letters to higher health authorities to supply fumigation material and launch an awareness programme among villagers regarding communicable diseases but no one took interest in his applications.

He said two types of malaria were found: the first is called P. falciparum which is a dangerous disease, and second one is P. vivax.

Mr Hassan said that in the last 10 years the department had been functional with the help of foreign aid but after the aid ended, the government took no initiatives to run the project properly.

When the programme was launched in the 60s, pesticide DDT was used to kill insects. It worked very well for vector control and killed mosquitoes. It did not cost very much money. Other chemicals for vector control had not been invented yet. Later, in many places mosquitoes became resistant to DDT.

He said later the government abandoned DDT because scientists also were worried that DDT was making people and animals sick. Scientists think it might cause hormones to not work right. It might also make people and animals have trouble reproducing (getting pregnant and making babies.) It killed a lot of wildlife too.

Later, the government used Deltamethrin in fumigation but the pesticide was so costly that the government could not continue the supply for long.