Pranoy Mohapatra, 16, of Marlboro, a student at the Monmouth County Vocational School District Academy of Allied Health and Science, examines a young patient at a clinic in India, where he used his skills to help assess people during an outbreak of malaria. See story, page 30. MARLBORO — While on vacation with his family in India last summer, Pranoy Mohapatra witnessed an outbreak of malaria. Putting his medical knowledge to work, Pranoy, 16, worked with doctors at a clinic to help sick residents. Now the young man is trying to raise funds to educate the residents of Satabatia about sanitation and ways to keep themselves healthy.
Pranoy resides with his family in Marlboro and is a student at the Monmouth County Vocational School District Academy of Allied Health and Science in Neptune. Pranoy said he has visited Satabatia many times because his grandparents and other relatives live there.
Satabatia is in the Indian state of Orissa. Last summer started out as any other visit to his grandparents, until an outbreak of malaria overwhelmed the region.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Internet Web site, malaria is a mosquito-born disease. People who have contracted malaria often experience fever, chills and flu-like illness. If the disease is left untreated, the victims may develop severe complications and die. The CDC reported that between 350 million and 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide each year, and more than one million people die, most of them young children in Africa south of the Sahara.
Pranoy said people in the region of India he was visiting became sick, but it was not until someone in the village died that the specific disease plaguing the community was known. With the citizens scared and not fully understanding what was going on, Pranoy said he leant his efforts at a clinic that had formed to help the victims.
The clinic was set up at a school and the young man said sick individuals would swarm the door of the clinic to get their turn with the doctor. Pranoy said he helped develop a system the people could follow in order to receive the help they needed.
Forming the group into a line of first come, first serve, the young man would write a file of sorts for each individual, documenting their symptoms so the doctor would be ready to receive the patients. In assembly line fashion, an individual would be called by their designated number to meet with the doctor. After meeting with the doctor, medicine would be prescribed and the individual would obtain the necessary drugs at the next table.
“There were some people who were too sick to get out of bed and go (to the clinic). I would take their symptoms down and bring them back (to the clinic). Then the doctor would give me medication and I would take a bike and go deliver it to them,” Pranoy said.
Luckily for the Mohapatra family, no one became gravely ill with malaria. Others were not so lucky, as Pranoy reported that three children died as a result of contracting the disease.
Pranoy attributed the outbreak of malaria in part to the unsanitary conditions in the area. He described how a canal that runs through the town is where residents bathe and sometimes dispose of trash. The canal also runs past two other villages, where those residents also bathe.
“No one really takes care of the water they bathe in. There are all types of parasites in that water,” Pranoy said.
He noted that a combination of the dirty water, along with the heat and humidity of the area leads to a large population of mosquitoes which carry all types of diseases.
“In America we really don’t have that problem because we have a cleaner society and everyone has been treated (for different diseases), but in India they don’t have that,” Pranoy said.
While he was in Satabatia, Pranoy met individuals who were trying to raise funds and educate the residents about the dangers of the unsanitary conditions. Pranoy will be reaching out to those people to provide funds he is able to raise.
“It’s already a movement that’s going on there,” he said.
At Pranoy’s high school there is a global forum which attempts to raise money for different causes. He has also started a Web site, www.freewebs.com/naturegonewrong, in hopes of spreading the word. The Web site highlights natural disasters and provides links to organizations that accept donations.
Pranoy has also reached out to the Orissa Society of America since he knows the group is dedicated to helping people in that region of India.
The young man said he has always been interested in science, which is what led him to become a student at the Allied Health high school.
“Medicine is an interesting field, it’s like a puzzle and it’s fun to solve that. And at the same time I am helping,” Pranoy said.
The high school has programs which place students as volunteers at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune.
On his own the young man has done lab work at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in the imaging area and last summer Pranoy worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., in the mitochondrial lab. At the moment the young man is shadowing an oncologist in Howell.
As of now Pranoy is not sure where he wants to focus his studies, since the research area interests him, but he has a desire to see others get better firsthand.
“Research, yes, you’re helping the masses, but you really don’t get to see the effect of what you’ve done. Whereas patient care (you do),” Pranoy said.
After experiencing the outbreak of malaria in India, he has learned firsthand not to take anything for granted.
Pranoy said he hopes that other people will become more aware and “treat the whole world as one entity and help everyone out when possible.”

