Apart from health workers and female community health volunteers serving in the district, the DPHO has hired social workers, students and representatives of locals clubs for the campaign, officials informed.
The DPHO has aimed to administer medicines against elephantiasis to over 1.7 million people in the district during the three-day campaign.
"This time we have extensively used mass media to inform people about the importance of the campaign," said Sri Krishna Bhatta, chief of Kathmandu DPHO. He informed that a study conducted by the government in the past shows that the disease is prevalent among 23 percent of the district's population.
According to Bhatta, the DPO has been using all the available means of mass communication to raise awareness about the importance of campaign. He informed that it has also trained college students to mobilize in the campaign to make it successful. The DPHO has bitter experience in the previous campaign, as very few people in the district cooperate in the government campaign.
"We hope mobilizing students for the campaign would ensure higher coverage," said Bhatta. He complained that the urban population and the so called elite are unsupportive toward the campaign. "They think that elephantiasis does not occur among the relatively well-off people. This is a misconception," said Bhatta. As a result, the coverage of the MDA campaign in Kathmandu district is very low.
Volunteers mobilized during the campaign in the past complain that do not get access to big malls, apartments and housing colonies. Some people even unleash their dogs to chase away the volunteers. Private schools and colleges had barred health volunteers from administering elephantiasis drugs to students.
The Kathmandu DPHO has also requested the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) to ask the Ministry of Education (MoE) to direct all the schools in the district to cooperate with health volunteers mobilized during the campaign.
Elephantiasis is the second leading cause of disability after leprosy and causes permanent disability.
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