‘Traditional’ route to track fever cases

Relying on syndromic approach to jaundice, fever and diarrhoea, state health officials have been tying up with several traditional medicine practitioners to spot jaundice cases and prevent any outbreak. The practitioners are in districts like Tiruvannamalai, Tiruvallur, Krishnagiri, Kancheepuram, Pudukkotai, Erode and Madurai, to name a few. 

Talking to DTNext, Dr K Kolandaisamy, Director, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, says that each of the conditions requires a different approach. He says, “We have around 20 of these paramparai vaidyars and alternative medicine practitioners in our network. They are the first to treat people in the districts, in the case of jaundice or any form of infection. Every day, we seek a list of jaundice cases from them and if we find a high volume of cases in any village or area, we check issues like water contamination to avoid any outbreak.” 

He adds that especially the ones in Walajah are famous for their treatment, insisting that the network serves as a mere tracking point for the officials. “We are not getting into the effectiveness of their treatment, but herbs like Keezhkainelli are extremely popular as treatment. Many believe in their effect and seek treatment from these traditional practitioners. From them, we get at least a couple of reports on jaundice in the areas,” he says.

Dr Kolandaisamy also says that so far with the help of the network, they could have averted outbreak of jaundice in places like Manapparai, Dindugul and Madurai.

Earlier, health officials had said that apart from dengue prevention, the focus this year was on a number of other diseases like Malaria, leptospirosis, Hepatitis A, etc, ahead of the monsoons.