Corona virus disease -2019
- WHO declared COVID-19 , a world pandemic. Corona virus is not the actual virus it is a whole family in which COVID-19 is a type and it is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus -2. It is common in people and animals like cats and bats. Common corona virus causes cold and respiratory tract problems . Everyone infected by these virus once in their life. But this evolved virus from the animal body enter humans . Important examples of it are SARS ( Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) 2003 by bats , MERS ( Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) 2012 by camel. It is highly transmissible as June 26, 2020 the number of cases reported so far are about 9.63M and death number are around 490K. if you compare these number with SARS having around 8000 cases, Mortality rate 9.5%. And MERS having around 2500 cases, Mortality rate 35%.
Journey of COVID-19 From china to world pandemic.-
First reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China- it is seen that unusual cases of pneumonia is increasing rapidly clinical symptoms are sore throat, lungs infiltration, cold----- In December 31 it was first reported in WHO office in china several searches are done and came to know it was china’s seafood market where it came from----- In January 1 seafood market was closed---- In January 12 2020 china reveals genetic codes of corona virus with the rest of the world, so that proper diagnostic can be done to determine--- End of January it was announced that corona virus originated from Wild bats and belong to a similar group SARS --- January 30 SARS-Cov2 declared an outbreak --- February 11,2020 WHO names the virus COVID-19--- March 11 WHO declared covid-19 a world pandemic.
Symptoms:
SARS-COV-2 affects the respiratory tract specially lungs
Average age affected is 47 year old , and children are rarely symptomatic
Incubation period is about 2-14 days and have symptoms are;
- Fever
- Dry cough, sore throat
- Shortness of breath
- Tiredness, dizziness etc.
These symptoms may progress and a person can develop Pneumonia—Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome ( ARDS)
As mortality rate is around 3.7% but;
- Increase with age 60+
- Increase with Comorbidities like Diabetes, heart disease, kidney problem.
Treatment of affected person:
- Supported care is the only treatment so far like treat the shown symptom, if the person have vomiting treat him with antiemetic, with antiviral
- In serious case add on oxygen cylinder and putting the patient on ventilator.
- To the date there is no specific vaccine developed to treat COVID-19.
- Plasma therapy is useful up to some extent – Convalescent plasma therapy
This is treatment in which the person who got immune from this virus donate their antibodies (IgM, IgG) to the other suffering patient who is the recipient. This method is very successful in fighting with the virus.
Drugs (under trials) for the treatment :
1. Remdesivir- iv drug, developed to block the infection of Ebola. Remdesivir has been used in some patient and appear safe.
It targets hey viral proteins involved in making of new copies of the virus.
2. Lopinavir and Ritonavir- It is basically used for the treatment of HIV, but shows some excellent result in blocking the virus copies to be done. It passed laboratory trials.
3. Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine- used to treat malaria initially . It receive a lot of hype after President Donald Trump asked these medicine from India, the biggest manufacturer . The Chloroquine passed the laboratory trail but didn’t show much impact on large scale. In return it has several side effects on long term use.
4. Dexamethasone - it is cheap steroid, but can be used in severe cases only patient with mild illness would get harm from it.
5. And there are many more……
Situation in India :
image source- Google| published by- News 18
India is facing an alarming situation right now as the condition is becoming worse day by day. The First case of corona virus was found in 30th January in Kerala, a student from Wuhan ( China) was found positive. It was 4 months ago and now India have 490K confirmed cases with 15,301 deaths. India did world’s biggest lockdown. But what went wrong why there is so much cases?
On 23rd march a total lock down was announce for 21 days with a motto “ jaan h to jahan h”. The motto of the first lock down was to break the chain but the testing number is not increased. It has many reason but the number reason is the shortage of PPE kit or testing kit. Although 21 days lock down were well obeyed by the citizen. During this period it was thought that number of cases will reduce but vice versa it increased, which in turn break the moral of many citizen.
Second locked down was announced on 14th April. The motto given “ Jaan bhi Jahan bhi”. In this we need to think how to control the spread and uplift the economy as well. In this period a lot of thing contributed- the migration of Labour into their state back via walking on the road in private congested buses, tablighi jamaat and protest by the doctor asking for PPE kit for their work. And the wrong judgment to put areas in red ,orange and green zones.
After 1st removal of lock down on 8th June 26, 2020, the ratio of infected person increased rapidly specially in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai etc.
This lock down affects the economy of the country as well. Before the lock down was announce our economy was at 3.1 % . Now after lock down it is not estimated yet. But surely it will go down.
Collapsing of healthcare system:
I already explained in one of my blog about how bad is healthcare care system of India. This is the link of that go and read it.-https://mankibaatsabkesath.blogspot.com/2020/06/disabled-healthcare-system-in-india.html
Due to increasing number of cases in India, there is a shortage of beds seen in many hospitals in the country. Which further create chaos in the citizens. Many private hospitals are asking huge money in return of allotting bed. Doctors get infected due to poor facilities. These condition will become more worse when dengue and malaria arrive. According to the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal these cases may reach up to 5.5 lacs in July 31. And Delhi will face shortage of 80K beds.
Solution:
image source - Google| published by Unicef |for every child
As we all know there is no such vaccine developed yet to control the virus. So we need to make very less contact with other people. Try not to leave until unless it is urgent and if we are going out need to take care of proper sanitization and protection. Avoid busy routes to less the human contact. We need to learn how to leave with it because this situation is going to end soon. This quarantine teaches us so many thing don’t waste them. The solution for this problem is to stay safe and make your family by staying at home
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