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Tripura denies using banned drugs

By Correspondent

AGARTALA, July 6 � Tripura Health Minister Badal Chowdhury on Saturday refuted opposition Congress�s charge of using banned anti-malaria drugs while treating malaria patients in the government hospitals.

Anti-malaria drugs ACT-SP and ACT-LP falling under treatment protocol are being used in the government hospitals to cure malaria patients and it has saved thousands of lives in the State, he said while speaking to media persons at Agartala Press Club here.

Referring to Congress allegations of using banned anti-malaria drugs, Chowdhury clarified, �A Central team has already visited several government hospitals to oversee the treatment arrangement for malaria patients. They did not pass any adverse observation on our treatment protocol or procedure. What they exhorted us was to use ACT-AL as much as possible since it is effective than ACT-SP�.

Terming Congress allegation as baseless and unfortunate, he said �The situation would have been more serious if the department uses banned drugs or wrong treatment protocol. The allegation of wrong treatment is nothing but an attempt to create panic among people�.

Earlier, PCC spokesperson Dr Ashok Sinha displayed a statement of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme Director Dr AC Dhariwal which claimed that Tripura among other States of the NE failed to properly implement funds allowed to the State for malaria control.

�The Health Minister admitted that Tripura is having 98 per cent prevalence of plasmodium falciparum and two per cent prevalence of plasmodium vivax. It�s surprising how the same government placed order for anti-malaria drugs applicable for vivax cases, that too those which were negated in the Treatment Protocol in the National Health Policy in 2013�, Sinha added.

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