Patna, January 21
Even as the Bihar Government targets to turn the state free of kala azar (black fever) by 2010, this hardly brings cheers to the homes of many. For poor people fighting the disease in some of the state’s remote villages, it is more of a social challenge than a medical one.

For instance, Gopal Yadav of Vaishali, a victim of the disease who is unmarried and marriage proposals never came his way, says, “The moment people talk about marriage with me they get frightened. They say I have kala azar and so they will also get the disease”.

Ironically, Yadav is not the only confirmed bachelor. There are many unmarried men and women like him in nearby villages and also in some north and south Bihar districts who have been suffering from the same social stigma.

Their only fault lie in the fact that they belong to villages which were once affected by kala azar, an infectious disease caused by a protozoan and is transmitted to humans through sand fly bites.

The disease was once rampant in north Bihar and some villages in Vaishali were the worst affected. Hence, people residing in these villages in particular have virtually become untouchables.

A senior official of the Health Department admitted that the disease, which claimed over 100 lives in the past, indeed dashed the hopes of many youth in such villages who could not get married only because of the social stigma attached to this. “People are scared of getting married to people from these villages,” he said.

Meanwhile, the state government has formed a special task force, to be headed by former Union Health Minister C.P. Thakur to battle the disease.

It is learnt that the disease has spread to 31 of the state’s 38 districts and affected an estimated 24,000 people, mostly poor.

Kala azar is also said to be the second-largest parasitic killer in the world after malaria. As many as 90 per cent cases in the world are found in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sudan and northeast Brazil.