Covid-19: Prevention Really Is Better Than Cure

While the Prime Minister’s rather long-winded address rightly warned against panic, he has not really informed us about the measures he has taken and planned to counter the spread of the deadly and highly infectious coronavirus. One has a feeling that he is not really aware of the depth and scale of the menace. Especially because it is totally unfamiliar and resistant to known medical science. 

This is a medical emergency of the first order. Given the ignorance of basic hygiene and even the relative scarcity of elementary stuff like soap and water among the poor in the country, it is hard to figure out how the common masses will be able to cope with it. 

An indefinite lockdown will make even normal life impossible. Most transactions involve touching with hands. Food has to be bought and sold each day and work means travel for the common labouring man. Chaos may stare us in the face unless emergency measures on an enormous scale are taken. 

The Prime Minister has spoken of a task force to gear up the economy for the crisis. One hopes his view takes in more than corporate business. We cannot miss the terrible fact that each country is under such strain to put in place urgent measures to beat back the threat that it is in no position to help others in the same plight. 

So while the appeal to keep calm and steady is timely, one wishes he had consulted expert medical opinion in time. Especially virologists and forums like ‘Doctors without Borders’. The pity is that his government has brought about such an environment in the country as to make even knowledgeable people hesitate to speak out for fear of inviting the wrath of politicians and hysterical violent mobs. There had been every indication that this was no ordinary epidemic. 

So what should be the priorities? Experts have declared the importance of testing, and reports say there are only 50 laboratories in a country of 135 crore people that have the required testing kits. The number must be raised, and in record time too. The number of available masks and sanitisers must also be increased manifold. A protocol for treatment and the regimen of useful medicines must be made available to every district or sub-divisional centre for dissemination among primary health centres. 

The most unpalatable fact for the boastful Indian upper-middle class, who believe that winning a test cricket match puts India on top of the world, is the woeful shortage of doctors and paramedics in the country. Compared to the presence of four doctors for every thousand people in Germany, three to every thousand in France, Russia and the United Kingdom, we have less than one doctor among every 1,000 people, and they are heavily congregated in urban areas. 

The government’s decision to make medical education prohibitively expensive has both diminished the relative numbers, and considerably dented the physician’s sense of healthcare as a service to humanity. True, there are many exceptions. Yet the reorientation of the profession to profit has taken place within recent memory. 

So far, no effective vaccine has been discovered. It will take time before thousands of lives are decimated. The stress has necessarily been on prevention and treatment. One hopes reusable masks and gloves will be made available after proper experiments. That too will need global cooperation and concentration of effort. I still feel stunned and teary-eyed when I remember the many brave American and European doctors and nurses who lost their lives in volunteering for experiments for an effective vaccine for Ebola virus in Africa. 

The patients who succumb to attempts to try new medicines for their treatment also deserve our respect and gratitude. 

Cuba has an anti-viral drug, Interferon-Alpha 2B, which is reasonably effective against Covid-19. The government of India should order and stockpile a massive quantity of this medicine. If necessary, it should be made in India, with payment of due royalties. Funds must be diverted for this purpose from such frivolous purposes as renovating Delhi’s metropolitan landscape. 

And of course, tempering our readiness with precaution against unhelpful mass hysteria at the unfolding disaster. 

The author is a socio-political commentator and cultural critic. The views are personal.