Two-pronged strategy for malaria

SURAT, June 21: Dr Michael Elmore Meegan, Epidemiology Advisor to the Surat Malaria Control and Research Project, has claimed that the Centr...

SURAT, June 21: Dr Michael Elmore Meegan, Epidemiology Advisor to the Surat Malaria Control and Research Project, has claimed that the Centre for Social Studies CSS has evolved an alternative health care model based on the anthropological aspects of malaria in Surat district.

Senior fellow and CSS Director Dr Lancy Lobo, who co-ordinated the project, has submitted the preliminary report to the government. The project, funded by the Department For International Development, may pave the way for radical changes in the country8217;s health policy if donor countries seek implementation of the project report recommendations.

Talking to Express Newsline, Meegan, an UK-based specialist in ethnographic public health processes, said, 8220;A successful health policy needs an indigenous plan which takes into account people8217;s beliefs and attitudes. The will of the people must be respected and they should be involved in the process.8221;

Bureaucrats talked about people8217;s participation in policy-making but rarely consulted them in reality, he said, while Lobo added that the public health system in the country had failed because it has not come from the people.

8220;Knowledge alone does not change people8217;s behaviour; beliefs and attitudes have an equally important role to play. Therefore we should go back to people, and reconstruct their ways of coping with various diseases. We are going to people to highlight their choices and involve them in decision-making8221;, Meegan said.

Suggesting that epidemiologists and anthropologists together design malaria-control strategies, the British doctor said the first group possessed a degree of certainty about the cause and cure of a disease and technical/chemical solutions universally applicable.

On the other hand, Lobo said, an anthropologist regarded illness as distinct from disease, and considered its social and psychological implications. Psychological problems like nazar, social problems like childlessness, wife beating and unemployment were things that anthropologists studied, he added.Asked why people hesitated to accept scientific/technical knowledge and solutions, Meegan observed that people had their own indigenous health care and community perceptions.

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A human being was not just a bag of tissues and bones but a social being, a member of a community, Lobo said. Drawing parallels between the bhagat folk healer and a doctor, he observed that a doctor8217;s all-knowing attitude alienated him from the patient, while a bhagat8217;s ability to present himself as one of them endeared him to others.

Not just the prescription but the behaviour of the doctor was crucial in the right treatment, he said, adding that people8217;s perceptions were more important that the medical treatment offered.