Santosh Yadav

Hold your breath as you watch a team of mountaineers rappel down the capital’s tallest building, Biscomaun Towers, on Thursday to spread awareness on kala azar and reinforce the state’s resolve to eradicate the disease within the next few years.

The show, organised by the health department, has signed up veteran mountaineering Santosh Yadav as the ambassador for its campaign against the disease.

Hailing from Haryana, Santosh is a senior officer with Indo-Tibetan Border Police and holds the distinction of being the first woman in the world to scale the Mount Everest twice within a span of a year, in 1992 and 1993.

“For the first time in the country, we are marking a day as Kala Azar Day on March 15. Several campaigns will be launched to root out the disease from the state. We will take the programmes against the disease on a war footing and that is why the campaign will begin in style,” health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey said.

He added: “We have invited Santosh to be the face of the campaign and the mountaineers from her team will perform a rappelling show tomorrow to create awareness about the disease.”

The department has organised a padayatra from Gandhi Maidan’s western end to JP Roundabout announcing the state’s promise to eliminate the disease that has killed around 750 people in the past five years and has affected lakhs, mostly poor people in rural areas.

“After the polio eradication programme in the state met with thumping success, we are now shifting our focus to kala azar and hence, various measures will be taken to curb the disease. To draw public interest towards our move, we have arranged the rappelling show on Thursday that will see mountaineers descending from fixed ropes from 80m-high Biscomaun Towers once the padayatra ends at JP Roundabout. Chief minister Nitish Kumar will formally launch the campaign,” Choubey added.

Santosh, the first woman to successfully climb Mount Everest from the Kangshung Face, has been actively involved in many health projects in various states but this is the first time that she will be attached to a health campaign in the state.

Bihar has seen steady number of kala azar patients since 2006 and is totally dependent on the Centre for medicines for the disease in its public health programmes.

According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, of around 16.5 crore kala azar patients in the country, 70-80 per cent are registered in Bihar only.