An Overview of Malaria Burden in India and Road-Blocks in Its Control
915-916
Correspondence
Sarika Jain
Department of Microbiology,
BLK Superspeciality Hospital, Pusa Road,
New Delhi-110005
Phone: 9891604515
E-mail: drsarika6@gmail.com
Malaria continues to be a major public health problem with India alone contributing about 70% of the 2.5 million reported cases in South East Asia. P. vivax is a predominant parasite species in the country; however, malaria control programs have been neglecting the species and have garnered all efforts against P. falciparum. The parasite resistance to insecticide and antimalarial drugs is growing and the alarming reports of emergence of multi-drug resistance poses a real threat to the impact of most of the malaria control programmes. Intensive monitoring of drug resistance along with the strategies to reduce its future emergence and spread is imperative, especially as there appears to be no near-future promise of antimalarial vaccines being available for clinical use.