Filarial Elimination in India Missing Its Deadline– Evidence from a Cross Sectional Study of Four Districts of Uttar Pradesh

Objective: India in its national health policy-2002 proposed to eliminate filaria from India by 2015. For this India started Maas Drug Administration in year 2004. Since then few states has already achieved zero micro filarial rate, but filaria is still endemic in many states and districts of India. By looking at recent trends of Mass Drug Administration coverage it seems that target of eliminating filaria will miss its proposed deadline.

Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in Lucknow, Sitapur, Rae-Bareli and Hardoi districts of Uttar Pradesh in the month of May 2014 to assess the coverage of Mass Drug Administration conducted earlier in 2014. A total of 480 houses in the four districts were covered and the eligible population living in these household were interviewed regarding various aspects of the Mass Drug Administration programme.

Results: A total of 2,455 individuals residing in 480 houses were covered. The overall drug coverage of Mass Drug Administration in selected four district for Lymphatic Filariasis was 64.8%. Out of 1,592 person to whom drug was given only 1,154 (72.5%) actually consumed drug hence the net effective coverage of the Mass Drug Administration against LF in all four district was just 47.0%.

Conclusion: The net effective coverage rate was much below the recommended rate of 85.0%. The relative compliance was also below the recommended coverage rate.