Tuberculosis and Leprosy once used to be most dreadful diseases. In India, patients suffering from these diseases were treated as untouchable. So much so that there were many social stigma attached to these diseases. Family having a TB patient used to be forbidden and no parent would ever dare to marry their daughter in such a family. And about leprosy, less said the better. Still, TB and Leprosy were not as deadly as Coronavirus. So, India need to do much more than largely depend on social distancing to fight coronavirus.
The most deadly aspect of this virus is that there is no medicine (vaccine) available for its treatment and India has very very limited testing or lab facilities. This situation is very alarming. A country with more than 1.30 billion population can't depend on "social distancing" alone in its fight against a contagious virus All medical experts recommend testing on massive scale. The situation is more alarming as hundred of thousands of migrants have swarmed the roads fleeing to their respective villages tearing lockdown to pieces. All of them now need to be quarantined before they reach their home. Some states have stopped them at the border for quarantine. In latest move, union government has asked states to stop migrants at borders and quarantined them.
As of March 25, 144 laboratories have been authorized to test for the virus, 25 of them private facilities. Among them five labs are in Maharashtra, two each in Haryana and Tamil Nadu, and one each in Delhi, Gujarat and Karnataka.
However, its like "Cumin in Camel's Mouth- Oont Ke Munh Main Jeera". Testing is essential for identifying people who have been infected and for understanding the true scope of the virus outbreak. America lagged behind and now facing disastrous results.
Though America is the richest nation in the world, yet it did not respond as swiftly as the situation warranted. Red tapism, equipment shortages, an unwillingness to share, and failed leadership doomed the American response to COVID-19. The results are there for all to see. Hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, medical facilities ran low on ventilators and protective masks . So, death toll from Covid-19, rose beyond 1,200.
And what's happening in Europe reminiscent us the catastrophic Bubonic plague that killed 60% of Europe’s population in the second half of the 14th century. Europe then lacked testing facilities.
India is not better placed than U.S. and European countries. Despite complete lockdown for preventing community transmission of the coronavirus, we still run the risk of virus outbreak. Testing gives authorities a sense of the trajectories of transmission. Unfortunately, India has so far among the lowest ratios of testing in the world.
A country’s testing capacity is contingent on a range of factors: the availability of testing kits, laboratory preparedness and human resources. India’s initial testing protocol for coronavirus was narrow: Till March 19, the country was only testing symptomatic patients with international travel history and those who had come in contact with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases. ICMR senior scientist Nivedita Gupta had told The Indian Express that it was a “rational” decision “not to exhaust... testing capacity in futile testing”.
An the most widely-offered explanation is that India does not have enough testing kits. Even two state governments seemed to back this view. On March 16, Chhattisgarh health minister wrote to the Centre complaining about the “limited supply” of testing kits.
Then, on March 23, as Opposition leaders asked West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to step up testing for the novel coronavirus in the state, she said she could not even if she wanted to. She claimed the state had just 40 testing kits.
It is important to note here that one testing kit does not test one sample alone. On average, the government laboratories could test coronavirus cases up to 90 samples every day. Even if ICMR were to supply states with an infinite number of testing kits, the labs would not be able to utilize them.
The only solution is to expand the network of laboratories so that we speed up testing and know for sure how intense the outbreak of coronavirus is. One thing is sure we are to witness very long-term effects from this virus?
(Chander Sharma)