Open AccessKey Factors Fuelling India's Second COVID Surge
Author(s) -
Indranil Chakravorty
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the physician
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2732-5148
pISSN - 2732-513X
DOI - 10.38192/1.7.1.9
Subject(s) - health care , pandemic , workforce , economic growth , natural disaster , business , covid-19 , medicine , public health , development economics , political science , geography , disease , economics , nursing , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology , meteorology
Having declared in autumn of 2020, that India had defeated Coronavirus, the steep rise of cases in April-May 2021, caught the authorities unawares. The health care infrastructure was rapidly overwhelmed at every level and equally in the national capital, large and small cities and the vast rural populace. The human catastrophe that was unfolding in front of the digitally connected world was heart-breaking.
The natural ingredients of a battered economy (-23.9% GDP), a large populace (1.34 billion), poor public health, a chronic epidemic of diseases such as tuberculosis, diabetes, hypertension or kidney disease, chronic underfunding of healthcare infrastructure (1.8% of GDP), deficiency of healthcare workforce (estimated deficit of 600,000 doctors and 2 million nurses) and disjointed, disordered leadership combined with an incoherent, incohesive healthcare policy led to the disaster.
After relative stabilisation from the first few weeks of the impact of colossal lack of hospital beds, oxygen, supported ventilation, life-saving drugs, safe and dignified disposal of the dead, and any form of coordinated disaster response, there is now the new epidemic of the black fungus. This editorial explores the emergence of this new health challenge for India and issues a call to rally.