Tails up

Calcutta, July 24: Health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra, often accused of being insensitive to the plight of patients in government hospitals, does understand the pain of being bitten by a stray dog, though.

A victim twice, he had no qualms today in agreeing with the Opposition that a scarcity of anti-rabies vaccines was plaguing Bengal.

“I don’t how many times I have to take the vaccine because it is quite possible that I would be bitten once again as the roads are full of mad dogs,” Mishra told the Assembly while replying to the debate on the health budget.

Supplies of the anti-rab- ies vaccine are grossly inade- quate in health centres and hospitals across the state, he said, but blamed Delhi for the shortage.

The Centre has introduced a new tissue-culture vaccine following a World Health Organisation directive. “But the production of the new vaccine is inadequate in the country and it is not available enough in the open market. So I have written to the Centre asking it to resume supply of the earlier vaccine so that no one dies of rabies,’’ he said.

The minister admitted that the spread of dengue and malaria in the state was alarming. There were 927 malaria deaths in 2001-05 and 35 dengue deaths. Over 150 dengue cases have been reported in the state this year.

AIDS, too, is assuming alarming proportions in the state, he said. “The number of the people and families living with HIV/AIDS in Bengal is continuously rising.”

Over 2,000 new HIV posi- tive people visited state hospitals last year, compared with 1,220 in 2004.

A part of the rise can be attributed to the success of the Buladi campaign, the minister suggested.

Some Opposition members, such as Trinamul Congress’s Sonali Guha, however, found it “obscene”.

As many as 12,000 secondary school teachers have been trained to make students aware of the disease through “lifestyle education”.