Public health experts are unanimous not only on the need to take every possible precaution against coronavirus — both as individuals and as communities — but also on the need to avoid panic and irrational behaviour.
Easier said than done, many will say. But here’s some perspective: A host of other diseases, almost all of them preventable and treatable, cause many more deaths than the coronavirus. Ischemic heart diseases alone kill, on an average day, almost 26,000 people worldwide, and the Indian daily average of over 4,000 is close to the number of deaths caused by Covid-19 globally thus far.
As the statistics in these graphics show, heart, respiratory, diarrhoeal and chronic renal diseases along with tuberculosis, asthma and neonatal disorders kill lakhs of Indians each year. Diseases, of course, aren’t the only big killers. Close to 500 Indians die in traffic accidents daily.
The reality that there are several diseases causing a larger number of deaths in the world and India might be of little comfort to those terrorised by the Covid-19 pandemic, but consider this: Swine flu (H1N1), which was declared a pandemic after the outbreak in 2009, now merits more than a passing mention even though it has been infecting several thousand Indians and causing the deaths of over a thousand each year in recent years. It has now become one of the many viruses that result in hospitalisation and death, and that the health system routinely deals with.
Much of the fear that has gripped the world stems from the fear of the unknown, and the fact that there is no cure yet for the coronavirus. Still, even a disease like TB, which spreads through the air but has a cure, continues to pose a challenge to the health system, killing close to 4.5 lakh every year in India.
But to reiterate what we said at the outset: None of this should lull people or governments into complacency or a state of denial. Given how contagious the virus is, it could spiral into a global catastrophe if it’s not fought on every front.
By TIMES NEWS NETWORK
