If the findings of a study are to be believed, then the immediate cost of chikungunya and dengue to Gujarat comes to Rs 380 crore per year. The study has been conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, in collaboration with Oxford University.
"The immediate cost of these two diseases to Gujarat has been estimated to be Rs 380 crore per year," says Dileep Mavalankar, a faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, who has completed the study in collaboration with S.S. Vasan of Oxford University.
The above revelation is one of the key findings presented at the second conference on Medical Arthropodology, incorporating the third symposium on the Burden of Neglected Diseases, which is taking place on 15 and 16 December 2008 at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) unit in Madurai.
Over 150 leading scientists from India and abroad have gathered in the temple city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu to discuss climate change and mosquito-borne diseases such as chikungunya, dengue fever, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, malaria and yellow fever.
“There are some 3500 species and sub-species of mosquitoes worldwide, 330 in India. The ICMR unit in Madurai has painstakingly collected more than 70,000 voucher specimens belonging to 232 species", says BK Tyagi who heads the unit.
Only a small number of mosquito species carry diseases. Two species, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, are responsible for spreading chikungunya, dengue fever and yellow fever.
IIM-A has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Oxford Insect Technologies (Oxitec) Ltd., a spinout company of Oxford University for conducting studies and promoting genetic technology for insect control in Gujarat. The collaboration will help understand the burden of neglected diseases in India in general and Gujarat in particular.
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