Column

The swine flu wave in India, so far having claimed a little over 20 lives, is featuring utter chaos as the striking symptom that none is apparently able to deal with.

An Indian Army colonel, who fought in the 1999 Kargil war, says that one could easily tell when the Pakistan-inspired insurgents were on the run. “When they (the insurgents) begin firing indiscriminately and aimlessly, you are sure that they are panicking, and are on the run,” he said.

The health authorities in India are somewhat doing that. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad says that schools should not close down, instead use them as platforms for prevention and spreading awareness. And there you have it — the schools do begin closing down!

Then again, in the early stages of the pandemic when experts all over the world stressed that the only effective medicine for swine flu, Tamiflu, should not be given to all and sundry, the health authorities allow it to be consumed even by those merely suspected to be infected by the H1N1 virus.

By doing so, say the experts, the day is not far when Tamiflu would lose its efficacy, as the virus develops resistance to it. It’s just like how the white blood corpuscles in the bloodstream become stronger against harmful germs when they keep encountering them in their weakened form, either through vaccines or naturally. When these corpuscles become stronger than the germs, our bodies develop resistance to that particular virus or bacteria.

In this case, we are allowing the virus to develop resistance to the drug, the only one, that too in the absence of a vaccine to prevent the H1N1 infection. What we have seen in Bangalore too is nothing short of utter chaos.

Private hospitals are having a field day, pushing people rushing to them out of fear of having contracted the flu to government hospitals. What, then, is the purpose of the state government involving them in the anti-swine flu measures, if the pressure continues mounting on the government hospitals, which are anyway stretched beyond their means?

There was a purpose in the colonel making that comparison with the insurgents who ran like headless chicken. His view is that if a concerted and a well-coordinated effort is on to tackle an enemy attack, it is possible to fend it off impressively.

He feels a similar effort can suppress the onslaught of the swine flu, and make it possible to prevent the dreaded scenario that the World Health Organisation (WHO) projects, that India will be the worst affected country due to the ongoing pandemic.

Now, that cannot happen unless the states of the Indian Union invoke the Epidemics Diseases Act of 1897, legislated after the Great Plague of 1896 in India. Only that would ensure that the health authorities don’t end up like the insurgents on the run, but instead turn out like those who valiantly fended them off.That would infuse confidence among the panic-stricken people. But are there any takers?