SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
According to news UAE has warned its citizens to travel to India due to steady rise of Swine Flue cases in different parts of the country. With close to 700 deaths and 10,000 reported afflictions, swine flu is back and sweeping India dangerously fast. Although the World Health Organisation in 2010 declared the 2009 pandemic of swine flu over, the rapid spread of the disease in India has doctors worried and the new Indian government caught off guard. The Indian state of Rajasthan is worst affected with over 165 dead, followed closely by Gujarat which has 144 deaths due to swine flu. The sweep of the disease is wide and already half of the country has come under the net of swine flu.
Perhaps characteristically, the Indian government has been late to shift gears and move rapidly to take measures to contain this outbreak. The first mode of the government’s response to a serious health issue such as this is to deny it. That does not bode well for those who are unknowingly affected. This stand by the government will only serve to magnify the problem rather than to contain it. A woefully debilitated healthcare system, especially in rural India, does not help either, especially when epidemics of this nature hit the roiling masses of the country with the second highest population in the world. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would do well to take a leaf out of the book of his new friend US President Barack Obama, who in 2009, declared swine flu as a national emergency, as soon as it crossed the Mexican border. Only a sustained offensive, large scale emergency awareness programmes as well as rapid stocking up on medicines will ensure that swine flu does not spread farther than it already has or leave Indian shores. In an attempt to stop the spread of the disease, government officials in India had banned public gatherings in some regions of the country. H1N1 is a seasonal flu virus similar to that found in pigs. Although it circulates in pigs, the virus cannot be passed on by eating or handled contaminated pork products which are cooked properly. The number of swine flu deaths worldwide passed the 10,000 mark about eight months after the pandemic strain was uncovered in April, reaching 10,582, according to data of World Health Organization. A global cooperative strategy, as mentioned in a recent literature review on swine flu,10 will be essential in order to control a pandemic. The review states that such a strategy will require resource-rich countries to share their vaccines and anti-virals with resource-constrained and resource-poor countries. At present where the idea of an effective flu vaccine in a developing country like India and Pakistan is still merely a dream, such a strategy appears to be probably the best target to pursue in the wider interest of the nations in the long run.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
