Food being cooked in Narayanpur village. Picture by Nantu Dey

Raiganj, Aug. 7: A medical team that went to North Dinajpur’s Bahin gram panchayat area today to treat people suffering from suspected malaria said a lot of the villagers were too poor to buy mosquito nets and were suffering from malnutrition.

Faced with the revelation, the block administration has stepped in. “We are using funds from the local panchayat to distribute mosquito nets and provide the villagers with nutritious food. If required, we can also help them with funds from the block office,” said Raiganj block development officer Supriyo Das.

Five persons have died of fever in Narayanpur village in the past 10 days. Malignant malaria has been found in the blood of three of them, who were from the same family.

The medical team had earlier visited the area and took blood samples of nearly 30 others suffering from fever. Malignant malaria has been confirmed in a few of them.

“The people in the village are mostly tribals and are very poor. Most of them, including the children, are suffering from malnutrition, which has made them prone to diseases,” said North Dinajpur chief medical officer of health Sudhangshu Shekhar Sahoo.

However, this afternoon at Narayanpur, 12km from Raiganj, women belonging to two self-help groups could be seen cooking rice, lentils and a curry of paneer and potatoes on huge earthen ovens for about 500 people.

Panchayat members were overseeing the cooking. Bleaching powder had been scattered all over the place to drive out the mosquitoes.

Malati Tudu, a resident of the village, said she felt relieved after getting a mosquito net. “I have a six-year-old daughter and I and my husband are day labourers. We do not get work every day and often cannot afford clothes, let alone mosquito nets. We smoke out mosquitoes from our hut by burning discarded jute sacks,” she said.

The pradhan of the Bahin gram panchayat, Konika Mondol, said Rs 30,000 would be spent on the nets and food.

“We will cook food for the next seven days. After that, we may approach the block development office for more funds,” she added.