LAST MINUTE PANIC

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/05/10/last-minute-panic/

This episode of covid-19 has yet again highlighted one thing above all others throughout the world, and certainly in Pakistan. It has shown that the poor are the least equipped to enter quarantine, or to deal with a pandemic. They have tiny homes (if they have homes) ill-suited to staying indoors long-term. And they have almost no resources to withstand a break in their ability to earn.

There are some things that can be done to enable the disadvantaged to handle such events a little better.

An issue that has been highlighted is that, as a result of the pandemic, children are even more likely to miss out on their immunization vaccines, something that was already happening as a result of ignorance and misinformation.

Around a third of the children born every year in Pakistan have not had crucial childhood vaccinations by the time they are a year old, even though the initial stage of these vaccinations ought to be completed by the age of 15 months. These vaccines prevent tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, haemophilia, influenza type B, hepatitis B, diarrhoea, pneumonia, and measles. A national daily has quoted Dr D. S. Akram. a pediatrician working with an NGO dealing with immunization and child health, as saying that the largest city Karachi is “seeing a mini epidemic of measles, polio cases are on the rise, and TB is killing more people than Covid-19. All these infections are preventable, and we have vaccines available in Pakistan to combat them,” said Dr Akram.

It is a question of combating the ignorance that leads to this neglect. The government provides these shots free of charge. Yet around 500,000 persons are diagnosed with TB in Pakistan every year. Personnel administering polio drops are assaulted on a regular basis because local wisdom says they are in some way doling out disease rather than preventing it.

When there is a situation such as the current lockdown, even those who wish to get their children vaccinated may be unable to do so. Vaccines are unavailable and it is not easy to access the points where they are administered. Immunisation must be facilitated otherwise while a cure for covid-19 may be found, the world will be inhabited by even more patients of preventable diseases.

Now with people in quarantine, they are under great stress both financial and emotional. This has led to a great increase in domestic violence, but that is not all. Being cooped up together in small homes and being unable to go out into the open is likely to cause an increase in TB which will also increase when people are unable to visit clinics for treatment.

There is also likely to be an increase in the birth rate at this time. More than seven million children are born in Pakistan every year into a population that is already much greater than the country’s resources. In all times, but particularly now, there is an urgent need for better awareness regarding birth control, access to which must be facilitated when people are less able to make it to sale points and clinics, and much less able to afford it.

It is fine to say we need to maintain social distancing, but guidelines for home isolation for example have only just been finalized in the Punjab and presented to the Chief Minister for approval. These guidelines advise that PCR-positive patients and those with mild or no symptoms should be isolated at home rather than in hospitals which are overstretched, and it is advises on the care for such persons.

Aren’t these guidelines a bit overdue? You would think that once the pandemic hit, the first thing that would be done would be to set up a committee that would (aside from drawing a salary) come up with such guidelines. Coordination, organisation and honesty do not seem to be strong points in this country, although there is no reason except for a lack of commitment for this to be the case.

Educational institutions have been shut down to maintain this distancing all over the country. Students enrolled in private schools and colleges are able to attend tutorials online while this is the case. But the great majority of the young people of Pakistan have no access to water and soap, much less computers and Internet facilities. With the chasm between government and private institutions already almost unbridgeable, this hiatus in education has deepened that chasm to formidable depths.

Computers and online facilities are no longer a luxury these days, they are a necessity. If a home does not possess online facilities, and most homes do not, there should be another way for its members, particularly students, to access computers. At times like these when schools are shut down, poor students should not be left behind their more affluent contemporaries.

Lack of education, and the pervasiveness of ignorance, makes everything much worse than it would otherwise be. Most of the people in Pakistan are uneducated. They cannot be blamed if at this time they resort to strange remedies and ignorant methods to combat illness, such as injecting themselves with disinfectant or resorting to chants and other things to drive away the troubles besetting them.

It is time the federal and provincial governments identified these problems and took measures to deal with them rather than quarreling among themselves and being on the backfoot when the need arises.

Pandemics and quarantines have happened before and will happen again. Unless we are committed to the cause we are likely to be caught unprepared every single time.