| Unknown, unidentified and lethal fevers are striking
India. Such fevers have claimed thousands of lives the world over. The Siliguri mystery
fever, that gripped this town of West Bengal early this year, is a case in point. Top
government agencies, like the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), could
neither contain its spread nor identify the fever. NICD has admitted its inability to
identify several fevers in the past. The Medical fraternity is clueless about the
emergence of such fevers. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) warns that many
such fevers are waiting to explode. NEW DELHI, October 31,2001.
Recent research by CSE on ‘Fevers of Unknown Origin’ focussed on public health
challenges that have emerged without precedent and which have baffled the medical
community. The causes and mechanisms of the Siliguri fever remained a mystery for the apex
medical bodies the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the National Institute of
Communicable disease (NICD) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV). Centres for
Disease Control, based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA was invited by the medical institutes to
assist in the identification of the pathogen. Though CDC has submitted the report to NICD,
neither the details nor the results have been made public.
According to information received by CSE,
the causative agent was a virus similar to the Hendra virus of Australia and the Nipah
virus of Malaysia, both of which are domestic animal-borne infections. The story points
out that when serious epidemics like these are ignored, they remain unidentified and
untreated for much longer quite like the influenza-like fevers that grip the population of
Delhi every year
Changing social and environmental
conditions around the world have fostered the spread of new and potentially lethal viruses
and diseases – HIV, Siliguri virus, Ebola, West Nile and others. Several factors,
from unsanitary conditions, unpurified water and improper use of antibiotics, to migration
and large-scale environmental changes, has unleashed a spate of newly discovered or
unknown fevers.
The implications of this are two-fold
according to CSE: not only are medical practitioners ignorant and dismissive of the
existence of fevers, but the apex bodies ensure that the limited knowledge emerging from
investigations is withheld from the people. This effectively prevents the public from
taking any preventive measures, let alone the research agencies and public health systems
from taking any initiative in preventing outbreaks. The story is critical of the approach
of Indian institutes, as well as their inability to identify pathogens and design
effective surveillance protocols. The story argues that it is not too late to take action
to prevent the further onslaught of viruses and microbes, and offers solutions as to what
the government and the scientific community need to do.
What the government and scientific
community can do to prevent the spread of these unknown fevers:
- Create special regional units within the ICMR institutions
to monitor, predict and prevent epidemics
- Create a strong network from grassroots to institutions at
state and national level to gather information about outbreaks
- Create local, regional and national level institutions to
identify new epidemics and control them
- Involve medical colleges and physicians to identify local
epidemiological development
- Create databases for information exchange and repositories
of cultures
- Map susceptible populations and epidemics
- Conform to international protocols, standards and best
practices as those prescribed by WHO and CDC.
|
October 31, 2001 CSE Press Release