Collector makes whirlwind tour of Agency.

​Visakhapatnam: District Collector Praveen Kumar, who took charge recently, made his maiden visit to the Agency on Tuesday and assured the tribals that the district administration would make all efforts to contain diseases and deaths.

He visited Paderu area hospital and spoke to the patients. He pulled up the superintendent and other officials for not putting bed sheets on the beds and for poor maintenance of toilets. He went through the case sheets and assessed the kind of diseases the tribals have been suffering.

Later, talking to the reporters, the Collector said only three persons died of diarrhoea and others died of various other diseases.

Consumption of polluted water, contaminated meat products and lack of sanitation was causing diarrhoea in the Agency, he added. Around 30 per cent of the tribals were suffering from anemia and this was also leading to death of women.

“Most of the diseases are being caused due to lack of awareness, hence the district administration decided to launch awareness programmes on a massive scale.

An epidemiologist from Visakhapatnam would be sent to the Agency to find out reasons for getting infected with diarrheoa,” the Collector said.

Explaining about the present efforts, he said all the hospitals have been equipped with medicines and mobile healthcare units were being sent to the remote villages.

Stating that he would focus more on the health of the tribals, he said he would make a visit to the Agency once in every 10 days.
He also asked the senior medical officials to visit the Agency once in a week.

Regarding malaria, he asked the local health officials to kill the mosquitoes during the breeding stage. Blood samples are being collected from every village and any person suspected for malaria is being rushed to the nearest hospital.

Later, he consoled the famliies of those who died of various diseases at Adumanda village recently.