Stopping spread from urban to rural areas key to winning COVID-19 battle: Health expert
As people start easing back into their normal lives, theyshould continue with the practice of social distancing,wearing of face masks and hand hygiene to contain the spread,President of Public Health Foundation of India Prof. K SrinathReddy said. "One of the important things is to try and reduce as muchas possible flow of traffic between urban and rural areas,between hotspots and non-hotspots, at least till the hotspotsare under control because rural areas are much protected evennow in any state, he said.
PHFI is engaged in capacity building in public health inthe country through education, training, research, policydevelopment, health communication and advocacy.
There was less likelihood of the spread in rural areas aspeople there generally have less mobility, Reddy, whoformerly headed the Department of Cardiology at the All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told in aninterview.
By restricting traffic for only essential goods andtravel needs, we will be able to contain it because that isour biggest asset, two-thirds of our population is in ruralareas, if we protect them, then we will be much safer, hesaid.
The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 1,886 and thenumber of cases climbed to 56,342 in the country on Friday,registering an increase of 103 deaths and 3,390 cases in thelast 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry. When you increase the number of tests, you willdefinitely find out more cases. We have to look at number ofnew cases, as a percentage of number of tests done. Thats thefigure to look at, Reddy said.
Its true that the number of cases detected will increasewith the number of tests and the virus is likely spreading,said Reddy, who has been involved in several majorinternational and national research studies, having beentrained in cardiology and epidemiology. "But what we need to look at is how severe are the cases.Eighty-five per cent are very mild, or asymptomatic, then wemay not have much to worry, because ultimately the virus isgoing to spread, we cannot suddenly arrest the virus butquestion is how fast its spreading and how severely are thecases being affected, Reddy said. He said the COVID-19 death rate in India so far was 1.3per million population, while its much higher in othercountries like the US (26 deaths per million), the UK (449 permillion) and Belgium (726 per million).
That means even if its spreading, its much milder inIndia for whatever reasons, he said.
So, we have to keep a watch but we should not panic,said Reddy, who presently serves as an Adjunct Professor ofEpidemiology at Harvard and is also an Adjunct Professor ofthe Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University andHonorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney.
Asked how India managed to keep the COVID-19 death ratelow, Reddy, who obtained M.Sc. (Epidemiology) from McMasterUniversity (Hamilton, Canada), cited that the country has amuch younger population.
.and there could be other protective factorsBCG(Bacille Calmette-Guerin) vaccine is protective or otherthings are protective, we dont know, its also possible.Given that we have been exposed to multiple infections, ourinnate immunity may be better. All of these may matter.
"Whether the temperature is also making the virus lessvirulent, we do not know. All these are speculative, (but)possible but we dont have clear-cut proof. But age is oneof the most important elements in our population. We have amuch younger population, he added.
On some health experts suggesting that COVID-19 casesare likely to peak in India in June-July, Reddy said: We donot know because the idea is that by June-July, due to thecombination high temperature and high humidity, othercoronoviruses get less active."
If this coronavirus (COVID-19) also behaves like that, itmight start subsiding but then "we will have to wait forwinter to see whether it rises again, so we will have to waitand see. Right now, we dont have certainty, he added. RSVS VS