• One more patient dies, taking toll to 40

• Rapti river making affected area virtually inaccessible

Banke, November 3:

Patients suffering from cerebral malaria patients across the Rapti river complained today that treatment was still beyond their reach.

Meanwhile, 45-year-old Shantidevi Yadav of Holiya-1 died today for want of treatment, a local, Sohanlal Yadav, said over phone. Patients are awaiting treatment, he said. With Yadav’s death, the malaria toll in the last two weeks has climbed to 40. Though physicians had referred 12 patients to the Bheri Zonal Hospital on Wednesday, saying the patients were at high risk, just one patient was brought to the hospital in a vehicle yesterday. The District Public Health Office (DPHO) Banke does not even know where they are.

The DPHO said the patients could not be brought to the hospital as the affected areas were virtually inaccessible.

Chief of the DPHO Banke, Jaya Bahadur Karki, said the vehicle has been arranged for bringing the patients to the hospital. “Several people will be needed to bring the patients up to the Rapti. “No one is cooperating with us to ferry the patients.”

Karki said a tractor will head for the Rapti tomorrow to ferry the patients. He said a patient was rushed to the Bheri Zonal Hospital in a vehicle yesterday.

Karki, however, said: “A team of physicians from the Nepalgunj Medical College arrived in the malaria-affected areas today. All the physicians are busy treating patients, he added.