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| Tiny female mosquito is in action | | Far from satisfactory is governmental reaction | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI: India is the world's largest democracy. India is the second most populous country. And India is known for the highly efficient medical practitioners it has. Yet the tiny mosquito--female mosquito, to be precise--is testing the health system of nuclear India.
While northern India is reeling under dengue, chikungunya is plaguing the South. In between malaria is virulent. That is the health report of a nation that seems to learn no lessons from its past.
Interestingly, mosquitoes are carriers and transmitters of all the three diseases. The illnesses’ annual visitations after monsoon rains are common to any tropical country. But their incidence will be limited to a few areas and they are contained quickly to prevent their spread further.
Clearly, that is not happening in India. Otherwise, there is no rational explanation for hundreds of people falling prey, with several fatalities, to dengue in the national capital, New Delhi. What is more shameful is the outbreak of the disease in the country’s premier referral and research facility, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where one doctor died and scores of medical students and staff members have fallen ill.
Besides Delhi, the other affected states are Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. Down South, chikungunya after reaching its peak in several districts of Andhra Pradesh, including the capital city of Hyderabad, has spread to neighbouring States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala where the local government has sought the World Health Organisation’s help to check the disease.
Already, the debilitating illness has claimed dozens of lives and downed hundreds with fever. Maharashtra, which is supposed to have eradicated malaria, is back in the list with many cases reported from various regions. While the government treats the escalating number of cases as no more than a sanitary problem, the truth is that the three diseases are assuming epidemic proportions and there is no relief in sight.
No doubt, the outbreak of all these diseases is more than normal; but it raises several questions about official action – or inaction – in handling health crises and response to meeting the basic needs of people. Failure to tackle the mosquito menace at provincial and federal level is the root cause for the spread of the crippling diseases. The country has to declare a war on mosquitoes and improve its hygiene standards and sanitary conditions. As long as the government turns a blind eye to the winged enemy at the doorstep, India’s health woes will continue to multiply.
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