Amazingly, Even Diarrhea KIlls Scores of People in Nepal

One or the other instances of health related issues have been making the world at large obliged to get alert and anxious, time and again. There was a global threat called SARS quite sometime back. And an overwhelming fear about Bird Flu, which but seems to be alleviated recently, while the concern shall not be ceded to the extent that it may invite sheer carelessness, given the probable potentiality of the virus to cause a global pandemic. And there is this latest concern about Swine Flu. We are familiar to a reasonable notion that the most vulnerable ones to the global pandemics, like those mentioned above, are the people of the poor and politically instable nations. Subsequently, one would be astonished if our country could not be designated as a perfect example of poverty, mismanagement and political instability. Given this long-standing characteristic of our country, any incidence of spread of the global pandemic as such causing a significant harm to the commoners could, unfortunately, become an obvious incidence here. “Are we prepared to fight back the global threats like Swine Flu, or even Bird Flu, in the event of any such pandemic in our own land, for that matter?” The question, still, may raise many doubts and worries among the concerned authorities, let alone among the general masses, despite a hefty assurance from the government of being capable to tackle the stuffs. More than due to our relatively low capacity to tackle the problems as such, the worry has perceptibly been derived from the tendency of pulling up our sleeves to deal with any stern occurrence in a last minute, be it disease or anything, by when it might be too late. Besides, let alone such global pandemics hitting the global headlines. At this time, it would be worthwhile just to ponder over our homegrown pandemic of diarrhea, which is making a widespread reporting in the national medias, with some occasional international coverage. Here, the not-so-significant international exposure over the ‘diarrhea epidemic’ in Nepal could, however, be well understood as the global commonsense that the disease like diarrhea may not deserve a ‘pandemic’ status, especially at this time when the medical science has achieved a profound success over many diseases considered as ‘life threatening’ in the past. Diarrhea is easily tackled or treatable pertaining to the modern day medical advancement. But, unfortunately, it is not so for Nepal. Not at least for the poor, down-trodden, less-privileged people living in the rural regions, if not for those privileged lots residing in the urban regions and its vicinities. What is worrying is that diarrhea, by amazingly taking a form of an epidemic in the mid-western region of Nepal, has already taken hundreds of lives. More worryingly, the number is counting. Let us just imagine--Hundreds of life taken by diarrhea?! Besides the lack of adequate response from the concerned sides to contain the blow of the ailment, it’s the glaring reminder of the helplessness of the rural populace of our country who are ignorant of even the simple rules to prevent the ailment or to apply first-aid at least to avert deaths. The ‘determined’ effort put by the government on disseminating the medical workers and medicines in the affected regions has proved to be glaringly scarce, at least while observing the increasing number of the people succumbing to this ‘easily curable disease’ by the day. The Prime Minister has recently returned home from his visit to the southern neighbor. Alongside the flamboyantly significant agreement on the renewed trade treaty with India, his India visit may, hopefully, have other positive implications for the benefit of the common citizens down the road. But the ‘minor’ problem at home, i.e. the people dying from diarrhea, seems to be given a shadowy attention as yet. The PM’s remark was emotive and resounding when he said that “no one would have to die in this country of diarrhea and cholera in the future,” at the time when he was in the mid-western regions of the country to scrutinize the plights of the victims of diarrhea. But the death toll due to the epidemic continue to rise unabated even now, since its start five months back, which rather goes contrary to the PM’s self-assured statement after his return from India that the ‘epidemic is gradually coming under control.’ While the government could not yet have come up with a tangible answer on how the disease shaped into an epidemic, one may wonder that how many more lives have to be lost before the disease would absolutely come under control. This may also push the ordinary lots to an obvious qualm and worry--how come a country that needs to make a strenuous effort even to fight back ordinary ailments like Cholera or diarrhea could effectively tackle the more infectious and harder-to-tackle diseases like swine flu or bird flu in the event of their occurrence? Many at the affected regions have already lost their loved ones due to this newfound epidemic, seemingly emblematic to the poor and badly managed country like ours. While others are on the verge of losing their near and dear ones to it, including their own lives. These helpless lots may only have an option for the time being, owing to the government’s assurance of controlling the epidemic, i.e. to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Tags: Nepal , Poor , Politically Unstable , Diarrhea , Pandemic , Epidemic , People , Die