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Bhubaneswar: Odisha government and Tata Trusts on Friday signed an MoU to implement malaria control along with research aimed at improving the lives of people in southern districts.

"The state government is fully committed to keep malaria under control and move towards its elimination and keep pace with country s mission," said Health and Family Welfare Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak in whose presence the MoU was signed.

In order to control the transmission of malaria across the southern districts, the collaboration plans to focus on 557 villages in five selected blocks including Bissam cuttack and Muniguda blocks of Rayagada district, Lanjigarh, Thuamulrampur of Kalahandi, and Kotgarh of Kandhamal district.

This will also include the inaccessible villages from the list of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Odisha.

Stating that Odisha's eight costal districts have 30 per cent population of the state, the Minister said this part has very low malaria burden and our NVBDCP division is planning to increase the surveillance in this region further and make this a zero malaria zone within next few years.

"Besides malaria, we are concerned for maternal, infant and child mortality, high prevalence of malnutrition and anemia," Nayak said.

"When there is so much advance technology in communication front, we should think out of box and resolve the issues in innovative manner in all inaccessible corridors," the Minister said.

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