In Banke, for the 14th time, a night-time drug feeding campaign has been conducted to make the consumption of 'common medicine' against elephantiasis disease effective.
Even though the religious organizations and leaders of Nepalgunj have taken medicine, the campaign has not been effective in the community. Health workers are going door-to-door at night to give medicine after seeing challenges in the success of the common drug intake program against the disease, conducted in Nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city, Narainapur rural municipality and a ward of Baijnath rural municipality.
Durga Gautam, focal person for insect-borne diseases at Banke Health Office, said that there is an additional challenge because the people of the city have not been informed about this drug. "We reach home in the morning and we don't see people. Some people start going to work, some run away saying that they will take medicine in the evening,' she said, 'That's why we have started a campaign to give medicine, even if they stay all night.' Unkuff says that the challenge to succeed in the campaign has arisen because the people's representatives do not provide the necessary support.
27 percent in Nepalgunj, 40.9 percent in Narainapur, 42.4 percent coverage in Duduwa, 32 percent coverage in Baijnath.
In Nepalgunj, medicine has been started from February 5th and in other municipalities from February 7th.
According to the Health Office Banke, the goal is to provide medicine to 257,000 people in two municipalities and one ward. The Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization and local health workers are actively participating in making medicine available.
After 13 previous drug feeding campaigns failed, this time the campaign was conducted for the 14th time only in Banke district. Ramkumar Mahato, senior public health officer of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, said that if 80 percent of people do not take medicine this time, it will not be possible to declare Nepal free of elephantiasis in the year 2030.
This campaign, which was supposed to be completed in 6 years, has been going on for 14 years because the citizens of some communities here have not taken medicine. Because of this, the challenge has been added to the prevention of elephantiasis," he said, "The campaign is not being effective because those who take medicine keep taking it and those who don't don't take it." In 2020, this campaign was limited to 13 districts. Although the campaign started in Banke since 2010 (year 2067), the target has not been achieved yet.
