India’s health “time bomb” is ticking, and it’s not Covid-19, South Asian news and top stories

New Delhi (Bloomberg)-India’s surge in coronavirus caseloads is quietly causing another health hazard as global concerns grow.

The strictest blockade in the world has disrupted both routine and critical health services. More than one million children have missed important vaccinations and hospital births have shown a sharp decline, indicating that many women may have experienced unsafe births at home. Outpatient critical care for cancer has decreased by 80% from February levels, according to the latest government data.

But the biggest crisis is India’s long-standing fight against tuberculosis. The country currently has 2.7 million tuberculosis cases, the highest in the world, with 421,000 Indians dying each year.

According to a study by Dr. Zarir Udwadia, a pulmonologist at PD Hinduja Hospital and Medical Research Center in Mumbai, the current care gap will be an additional 6.3 million cases and 1.4 million tuberculosis deaths by 2025. There is a possibility of connecting.

“If you miss other treatments for a few days, you may not be harmed, but the tuberculosis treatment gap amplifies resistance,” said Dr. Udwadia. “Our lack of medical infrastructure has plagued the sea in the Covid case, which is why we couldn’t compete with traditional and old enemies such as malaria, typhoid fever and dengue fever.”

Failure to combat tuberculosis has long plagued successive Indian governments. In India, only 1.28 percent of GDP is spent on public health. Therefore, it is not equipped with a system to control fatal diseases such as coronavirus. South Asian countries have the second highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world, after the United States.

Over 65 million people in India live in dense, poorly ventilated slums like Dharavi in ​​Mumbai. It is one of the largest in Asia that has long fought tuberculosis before it became a hotspot for the coronavirus. These areas are important in controlling both diseases due to the fact that both tuberculosis and Covid-19 have a significant overlap of symptoms (shortness of breath, cough, fever).

A strict home order that came into force at the end of March closed India’s giant tuberculosis program for almost three months. According to government data, the number of children vaccinated with the BCG vaccine to prevent severe tuberculosis decreased by one million in April.

“There must have been two-way screening from the beginning, because when checking one, the other may be missing,” said public health expert Chapal Mela.

“India has been ignoring health investments for 30 to 40 years, and the entire government is guilty of this,” he said. “We lack political will, lack moral impulses, and do not appear to attach great importance to the lives of our citizens.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called healthcare workers corona warriors, but the federal government has only allocated an additional US $ 2 billion (US $ 2.7 billion) to fund the medical needs of epidemics. is. As a result, there is a lack of resources for non-virus related spending.

An Indian Ministry of Health spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The government will increase its investment in public health and prepare for this in the future,” said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. However, it doesn’t mention specific numbers or timelines about this.

India’s healthcare infrastructure is at its best depleted, with understaffed public hospitals, chronic hospital bed shortages, poor intensive care and under-trained staff. India has 1.7 nurses per 1,000, 43% less than recommended by the World Health Organization, and a shortage of doctors.

The pandemic also exposes vulnerabilities in the region’s resource-deficient healthcare system. In India’s neighboring country, Pakistan, 40 million children were not vaccinated against polio, while Nepal faced a 50% increase in dead babies.

When the pandemic broke out in India, understaffed and overcrowded hospitals had patients sleeping on the floor until beds were released and multiple patients were treated at a single oxygen station.

Transport restrictions during and after lockdown also restricted people’s access to primary care centers and pharmacies, resulting in interruptions in treatment and delayed diagnosis.

According to Dr. T. Jacob John, one of India’s top virologists, India is “not in serious danger” because it deals with so many issues. Former head of the Advanced Research Center for Virology of the Indian Medical Research Council.

“Coronavirus is an enemy with only one trick: infection, infection, infection,” said Dr. John. “Our war did not succeed in slowing down our enemies, but friendly attacks on vaccinations, tuberculosis, service to facilities, etc. did more damage.”