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Swine flu engulfs India as
pig-headed govt fumbles, fails its people
WSN Bureau
 PUNE/NEW
DELHI: What did you expect when a virus as deadly as Swine Flu hit a
country as poorly equipped to deal with even a minor healthcare
emergency as India? Complete breakdown of all so-called
arrangements, chaos, panic coupled with failure to disseminate
information, lethargic official machinery and a shameful record of
coping with a crisis.
Well, all of
this happened, and more. Worse: worse will happen.
News of deaths
are pouring in from Pune, Delhi and Mumbai, tens of new cases are
coming out as positive, number of suspected are going up by hundreds
and the queues outside the hospitals across the country are now
running into their thousands.
India is in
panic. In certain cities, including Pune, schools, colleges,
theatres, tuiton centres are being shut down for a week, and may be
more. The Indian Council of Medical Research said the Pune situation
had been declared a pandemic with transmissibility at the highest
level (Level 6) but virulence still at the lowest (Level 1) — a
“community spread” to denote that the flu virus was circulating
freely in the city.
“By community
spread, we mean that you can now pick up the virus anywhere and not
necessarily by exposure to a known case. Health authorities there
will not wait for confirmation of results but will administer
Tamiflu if a person reports with symptoms and the doctor thinks it
is a suspected H1N1 case,” said Dr V M Katoch, Director General of
ICMR and Secretary, Health Research.
It took the
government massive public and media outcry to even think of
authorising private hospitals to carry out tests to confirm swine
flu. After the two designated hospitals crumbled under the burden of
testing thousands, and state government was found clearly ill
equipped to deal with the situation, the Prime Minister's Office got
into the act, terse messages went out and some damage control was
put in action.
Maharashtra then
marked a few private hospitals where treatment for H1N1 virus will
now be available in addition to the existing facilities at
Naidu
Hospital,
Aundh General Hospital and the Sassoon General Hospital.
But crisis may
get a new and drastic turn as people gather in hundreds of thousands
for a Hindu festival called Srikrishna Jayanti (Dahi Handi) on
August 14 another big-ticket event Ganesh Chaturthi on August 23.
The Ramzan period also starts thereafter.
Samples for
verification of the flu are now taking 48 hours. Fresh guidelines
from the government are missing. Doctors want guidelines like in
Mexico, where gatherings have been curbed.
Hundreds of
people in many cities are being seen with home-made masks which
could be washed and used again.
With a sharp
rise in the numbers for testing, the government is planning to
manufacture an indigenous reagent to bring down costs. The ICMR is
looking at the possibility of developing a low-cost testing kit
which can bring the cost down to a tenth of the current cost. Each
positive test costs the government Rs 10,000 and a negative Rs
5,000.
12
August 2009
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