By Dr Nadeem Jilani
The world is in the grip of a raging pandemic. Every country is taking steps to contain it. Indian Government has also announced a 21 day complete lockdown to stop its spread but unfortunately, it is doing far from what is necessary. More than 400 million of India’s 1.3 billion people live in crowded cities and slums, many with conditions that could allow the disease to spread rapidly – no sanitation, no clean drinking water and so on. This makes India more exposed to community spread as predicted by Dr. Anant Bhan, a global health researcher in Bhopal (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-india-1656728-2020-03-18).
The first country which succeeded in flattening the curve is South Korea which indulged in an aggressive campaign of testing its population, tracing contacts, and further isolating the positives. As of April 8, it was still doing over 9000 tests per million people, with only Hong Kong and Singapore ahead in screening the population. But in India, there was a sluggish response initially in checking and tracing air travelers from foreign countries. A lack of robust screening measures at airports in the first two weeks of March led many cases to slip and mingle with the population. Some – including popular celebrities and ministers – attended religious gatherings; others socialized, attended weddings & funerals. Such large gatherings of people have spiraled into an increasing number of positives, 7,477 on April 11, according to the Union Health Ministry.
A report compiled by COV-IND-19 Study Group, an interdisciplinary team of researchers, said that India is critically missing a key component in this assessment — the number of truly affected cases. As of March 18, only 11,500 subjects have been tested and if this continues, the country could face between 1,00,000 to 13 lakh confirmed cases of the Novel Coronavirus by mid-May. We do not know who is carrying the virus and spreading it unknowingly unless we do more tests. Many other health researchers and doctors are of the opinion that India is not doing enough tests. Without testing enough people or not tracing the contacts of positive cases to isolate them will defeat the whole purpose of the lockdown. In Italy, it was a football match; in France a church gathering and in the US most cases were traced to the attendees of Mardi Gras Carnival in New Orleans. While in Malaysia and India it was after Ijtema (gathering) of Tablighi Jamaat, it was a funeral of a priest of ISKCON (Hare Krishna Movement) in London which led to the discovery of a cluster of cases.
While it is imperative that we listen to public health advisory and follow social distancing norms strictly, I also urge the Indian Government to increase the number of tests it is carrying currently as a matter of priority if it wishes to win the fight against COVID 19. Otherwise, we should brace for a terrible few weeks ahead for us.
If we compare with neighboring countries, it is shameful that India (102 tests per million population) is lagging behind even Pakistan, which is performing 191 analysis per million population despite its economy in tatters. Here I would like to quote Prof Steve Hanke of John Hopkins University, US. He warns that without enough testing, “situation in India could spiral into next Italy.”
God Forbid.