None of us had imagined that we would ever see
a crisis in health as huge as the one that we are witnessing currently. One disease and the entire world has come to
a standstill. But then, what is life if we can predict it?
Coronavirus, which has shaken everyone with
its massive spread, has slowly moved towards community spread in India. Reasons
for its relatively slower rise in numbers here can be various. The timely and
stringent actions taken by the government, our immunity to survive it due to
poor overall hygiene of the country; or the relatively larger number of
infections that we already face. However, fear of rising numbers remains,
because we are a densely populated land.
The losses that COVID has caused are many and
grave but then, there is one good thing that it has brought to us as a country.
It is our efforts to improve our existing healthcare system. It will be
premature to say if these efforts are temporary or permanent but it’s very
positive to see how we have invested more in healthcare basics, like gloves,
mouth masks, ventilators and an improved overall sanitization in the past few
days. The general masses too are getting sensitized towards the importance of
healthcare and the hygienic measures needed to control it.
Now that we all are sensitized towards the
importance of these basic measures for better health, we should understand that
this is not the first time that we as a country are facing a grave health
problem. Multiple diseases are known to kill thousands of people in India every
year. To name a few dengue, malaria, Japanese encephalitis and diarrhea are
common every year. They never draw our attention that much, because they are
limited to only certain portions in the country at a specific time duration. We read about these diseases and deaths but
probably because we are a hugely populated land, we fail to take this as
seriously as we should. But, the loss of lives with these diseases remains the
same, with chances of survival much worse than what we are currently witnessing
with the novel coronavirus. WHO reported
more than 8 lakh cases of malaria and the Ministry of Health and Family
Welfare, Government of India, reported more than 1.3 lakh cases of Dengue in
India in the year 2019. Japanese
encephalitis remains one of the leading causes of deaths amongst children and
young adults across many states in India every year. Despite the efforts we make each year to
control these diseases, the numbers remain more or less the same. The problem
lies either in lesser sensitization towards these diseases that we have had
till now or in the inadequacy of collecting the overall health data.
Until we know our exact disease burden, we
will be unable to make optimum health policies. It is only by stringent data
collection methods and reporting policies by both, the public and private
sectors, can we think of improvising the existing healthcare system. By knowing
the burden accurately more vaccines can be incorporated in the national
immunization health program and the right investments can be made for the improvisation
of our existing healthcare system.
Novel coronavirus has risen in the air like
dust and we all hope that it will settle sooner or later. This too will be
added as a new disease in the list of many diseases that live in our community.
But, looking beyond the current situation, this pandemic should act as an alarm
for our government, our society, and our healthcare system. High time, that we
should re-strategize our GDP and start investing more in health. We should use
this as a new baseline to start fighting for the better overall health of our
community in order to overcome many of our indigenous health problems, especially
the ones which are directly related to sanitization, nutrition, vaccination,
and basic healthcare support.
Now that the existing nightmare has opened
our eyes, let us keep them wide open for a healthier India!
Dr. Vandita Mishra (Periodontist and Author)
Dr. Parijat Tripathi (Consultant Pediatric
gastroenterologist)
vanditasshelf@gmail.com
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