106. India travellers, Malaria has not gone; it will come back. P S Remesh Chandran

106

India travellers, Malaria has not gone; it will come back

P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
 Article Title Image By Rmac 8 Oppo. Graphics: Adobe SP.

Considering the instances of a number of diseases sweeping India such as dengue and chikungunya and the resulting death of thousands of victims due to lack of treatment facilities available to poor people after the privatization of the health sector in the country, there is every possibility of Malaria again coming to India. The health authorities in the nation has no future-reaching vision as to the possibility of this killer disease again coming to India as is evidenced by their act of winding up the National Malaria Eradication Programme[NMEP]. Each time a disease strikes, what we see is the sudden assembling of futile task forces, the hasty distribution of insecticides and the belated deployment of health inspectors to the affected areas who otherwise are pleased to work inside their cool office buildings. The disease takes the toll of a few hundred human lives, the mosquitoes continue to rule as usual and a considerable portion of national revenue is consumed by fools by way of transportation, petrol, hotel rooms, T.A. and D.A. and incentives. It is like a national carnival there, a time for festivity. Ask any disease-affected and incapacitated person, he will tell it is exactly the truth. 

When Arboviral infections including chikungunya claimed hundred thousands of human lives the world over, these so called experts behaved like they were hearing about Zoonosis diseases for the first time. Everyone knows that all Zoonosis viruses need an animal reservoir host to multiply which were dogs in this case. Nothing in nature suddenly changed to affect the outbreak of these diseases except the number of dogs increasing due to anti human laws. Because it was the dogs, the authorities carefully avoided mentioning the presence of an animal reservoir host. Even W.H.O. carefully remained silent about the role of dogs in originating outbreaks of Arboviral infections. Everyone blamed mosquitoes and no one accused dogs for obvious reasons. The Indian health authorities are playing with the lives of citizens. The article has excellently laid out measures for preventing yet another outbreak of Malaria but if it happens we can see in advance that nothing as envisaged in the article is going to happen. A very large empire is eagerly awaiting the outbreak of this disease because it is the private hospitals, doctors and medicine manufacturing companies that are involved on the profiting side. It is we people who are going to suffer and it is they who are going to profit. And do not forget that after passing laws banning the killing of stray dogs in the streets, the government-owned Anti Rabies Vaccine Manufacturing Facility was ordered to stop production. It was the sign of not madness in the health sector in India but of the horrible greed of Indian political authorities to please and squeeze private manufacturers by creating and spreading diseases.

Article Title Image By Suket Dedhia. Graphics: Adobe SP.

[In response to news articles ‘Malaria control progressing in India’ on 18 October 2011 and ‘WHO’s malaria alert to travellers to India’ on 11 May 2012]