Massive dengue outbreak and helpless system
Chnadan Prakash
The number of dengue cases in Delhi has mounted to a staggering total, making it the worst outbreak of the vector-borne disease in the national capital since 1996. It seems that the government authorities are not doing enough to control this menace. And the attitude of passing the buck is prevalent among the various authorities responsible for keeping this menace under check. Obviously, in the war of dengue v/s the government, the winner is Aedes mosquito.
Delhi is busy in attracting the foreign investment, leaving citizen on the mercy of god “Now the most intriguing fact is that the maximum number of dengue cases in 2015 are reported in advanced states such as Kerala 4075, Gujarat 5590, Haryana 9980, Andhra Pradesh 3159, Karnataka 5077, West Bengal 8516 and Punjab 14128. And no doubt, Delhi tops the list with 15867 cases”. Certainly, dengue has probably replaced terrorism in claiming innocent lives.
We can imagine the situations of least develop states and the poor. The number of dengue fever affected millions of people and lack of proper infrastructure of the respective state forcing them to migrate to neighboring states for treatment, leads to the extra burden. A road map should be formalized to tackle this menace at priority basis to save millions innocent lives.
Global incidence of dengue has drastically increased in the last few years. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 390 million cases of dengue fever have been reported worldwide, and out of the total, 96 million require medical treatment and the worst hit city is Delhi with over 1800 cases of the fever. And even after massive awareness campaigning to educate people, the number of cases is still on an increase that has become the major concern for the country.
The number of dengue and chikungunya cases both crossed the 1,000-mark last week as over 300 new patients. All the hospitals in capital flooded with patients and situation became worse between centre and state government tussle. The number of cases reported keeps increasing and still on the rise with smarter counts and the way we allowing this disease to spread its arm will be proved fatal.
There is no treatment for dengue fever. For severe dengue, medical care by physicians can save lives, in that case, we have only one option to work in close cooperation with all the responsible and regarding authorities to prevent this menace to spread further. This is an intriguing fact that we claim to be the third largest economy in the world and sometimes reports also reveals that India may surpass Chinese economy by 2050 with world largest population surpassing China.
The question is that whether we are doing enough to provide the basic amenities such as the right to health or we are making our citizen burden on the country with curable diseases.There is only one doctor per 1,700 citizens in India; the World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulates a minimum ratio of 1:1,000. As the Union Health Ministry figures claim that there are about 6-6.5 lakh doctors available in the country, and further India would need a handsome number of doctors to match with the growing population.
The number of dengue and chikungunya cases both crossed the 1,000-mark last week as over 300 new patients. All the hospitals in capital flooded with patients and situation became worse between centre and state government tussle. The number of cases reported keeps increasing and still on the rise with smarter counts and the way we allowing this disease to spread its arm will be proved fatal.
There is no treatment for dengue fever. For severe dengue, medical care by physicians can save lives, in that case, we have only one option to work in close cooperation with all the responsible and regarding authorities to prevent this menace to spread further. This is an intriguing fact that we claim to be the third largest economy in the world and sometimes reports also reveals that India may surpass Chinese economy by 2050 with world largest population surpassing China.
The question is that whether we are doing enough to provide the basic amenities such as the right to health or we are making our citizen burden on the country with curable diseases.There is only one doctor per 1,700 citizens in India; the World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulates a minimum ratio of 1:1,000. As the Union Health Ministry figures claim that there are about 6-6.5 lakh doctors available in the country, and further India would need a handsome number of doctors to match with the growing population.
It is high time to work in close coordination with all the states to respond to the unprecedented crises by ensuring effective, efficient and strategic action to tackle the menace and address public health on priorities basis so that lives of people can be saved and suffering minimized especially for poor and underprivileged; Lot of steps are needed to be taken in terms of handling the epidemic including creating public awareness.
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