At an interaction organized at the Reporters' Club in the capital city today, the leaders of different political parties and civil society representatives said the government must concentrate on controlling the daily increasing number of deaths rather than seeking causes behind the epidemic.
UCPN (Maoist) leader Shakti Bahadur Basnet said the influenza was spread in Archhani Pouka, Sakala, Pajaru, Talegaon, and Nayakbada VDCs of Jajarkot district. If it is not controlled on time, it would spread to all 30 VDCs in the district and the environs. So, immediate supply of medicine and mobilization of medical persons was a dire need, he stressed.
The number of influenza victims has already reached 21.
Similarly, Nepali Congress leader and Constituent Assembly member Rajib Bikram Shah said it is government's sheer indifference towards Jagarkot, a remote district from the capital city that frequently suffers from health hazards.
Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Population, Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, however, said the government has reached the medical persons with sufficient medicines in the six places that the flu has afflicted most.
According to him, 61 seats for the medical/health workers were lying vacant in the rural areas of Jajarkot, which has also affected the smooth supply of medicine and service.
Director at the Health Service Department, Dr Baburam Marasini, said efforts were underway to reach medicine in the affected areas.
Civil society representative Dr Sundar Mani Dixit pointed out the need to form an emergency mechanism in the Ministry so that immediate response was possible. RSS
Related story
Jajarkot candidates urged not to make tall promises
