India is now struggling to control the COVID-19 pandemic, but another health disaster will be a growing headache for our country. Due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, many children missed their routine immunizations — BCG. Data also revealed that child birth has been low and some births have been through unsafe procedures.
India’s long-standing battle has been to fight tuberculosis (TB). At present, we have around 27 lakh of TB patients and every year we see a death of 4,21,000. With COVID-19 attacking the lungs, there could be a rise in TB cases. By 2025, we will have 63 lakh TB patients with number of deaths rising to 15 lakh.
This is quite alarming. Due to importance and care given to COVID-19, we are missing the care to our old enemies malaria, typhoid, dengue and tuberculosis.
This pandemic showed how we have failed miserably in controlling COVID-19, mainly because of our budgetary allocation on public health which is only 1.28% of GDP.
It is seen that the hotspots of COVID-19 are mainly in the cramped and poorly-ventilated populated areas. The symptoms overlap — breathlessness, cough and fever. These are critical points where the patients have to be adequately taken care of. The lockdown enforced in the last week of March for several months has seen fewer children receiving BCG vaccine, which prevents tuberculosis. As per government data, around 10 lakh children missed the vaccine.
Till date, India has ignored investing in public health, as we do not value our citizens’ life. Although this time it was said we will be investing in public health so that we can face any eventualities, the allocation figures are missing.
Our health figures are pathetic — we have understaffed public hospitals, shortage of beds, very low number of intensive care beds. We have only 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people, which is 48 per cent lower than WHO recommendations. The figures of paramedics and doctors are also abysmally low.
The grimness of the situation was reflected in patients sleeping on floors and waiting for beds to be free. Two patients even shared one oxygen station! Limited transportation and lockdown restrictions hampered access to health centres, medicine stores and pharmacies. This was the barrier and interrupted treatment.
This clearly shows that we do not take anything seriously and all planning is based on temporary, case to case basis. The so-called babus and advisors should wake up from their slumber and be ready to fight the dreaded disease of tuberculosis, which is lurking around the corner.
As is known, COVID-19 was only infecting one person from another. We were not successful in slowing it down and, in the process, we missed out on children’s immunization, controlling TB, planning out good public health systems, to name a few.
