TB and malaria kill more people worldwide than any other disease- as a country, India could do without Ebola.
India has isolated a man with Ebola infected Semen. But this is not our country’s biggest health problem right now.
Every three minutes, two people die of tuberculosis in India, as per the Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. In 2013, India had 61 million cases of malaria and 116,000 deaths. Annually, TB and malaria kill more people worldwide than any other disease- as a country, India could do without ebola.
Can we avoid Ebola? Media reports paint an agonizing picture of Ebola in Sierra Leone, where there are no vehicles to collect dead bodies of people who are dying from Ebola.
There are homes where the parents are dead and the child is alive but infected, with no one to take care of it. WHO estimates the Ebola death toll to be 15,000 people ( miniscule as compared to India’s TB and malaria numbers).
Where has Ebola come from?
Originating from a remote village in Guinea in March 2014, Ebola spread to Nigeria, Senegal and Mali, quickly. West Africa is struggling with the worst Ebola outbreak until now. America and Europe have their own cases too. Transmitted through blood, vomit, diarrhoea and other bodily fluids, Ebola isn’t airborne, thankfully. The healthcare workers in West Africa have been among the hardest hit by Ebola.
Though experts date back Ebola to 1976, and say that this is not the first outbreak, it could well be the worst, and will wax and wane with adequate preventive measures or the lack of them.
So can Ebola reach India?
India has quarantined a man who was cured of Ebola in Liberia but continued to show traces of the virus in samples of his semen after arriving in the country- this means that he is an Ebola-treated patient who is negative in blood but whose body fluid is positive. He may have the possibility of transmitting the disease through sexual route up to 90 days from time of clinical cure.
Flight patterns predict that India has a low risk of importing a case of Ebola. Of course the virus could land in the country, via a third country, and as this epidemic continues, the risk of this progressively increases.
However, the countries affected show a pattern
1. All are low-income countries with weak health systems
2. They have very weak disease surveillance.
India has the same systemic problems. In fact, we have more of our own. TB, Malaria and Dengue.