As per scientific and medical research findings, flue pandemics will not vanish completely from the face of the earth for quite some time. Plague was the first most horrible pandemic that had wiped out a huge number of human beings in the erstwhile Byzantine Empire in Egypt around 500 BC. It kept coming again and again across ages until year 1347 when it hit Europe killing 200 million people in the absence of a cure.
Large numbers of people living in close proximity to each other and to animals, often with poor sanitation and nutrition, provided fertile breeding grounds for diseases. And overseas trading spread the novel infections far and wide leading to the first global pandemics particularly in the 14th century when sea explorers rose in number. Though people had no scientific understanding of contagion those days, leading scientists had guessed that it had something to do with proximity. The forward-thinking officials in Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa decided to keep newly arrived sailors in isolation until they could prove there was no infection or sickness. So, at first, sailors were held on their ships for 30 days, which became known in Venetian law as a trentino. As time went on, the Venetians increased the forced isolation to 40 days or a quarantino that’s now practised only for 14 days to prevent affected people from infecting others.
Subsequently, smallpox and cholera have caused havoc and wiped out huge numbers of human beings. Somehow, antidotes in the shape of antibiotics and vaccines were invented by medical masterminds after centuries of research to eradicate plague, smallpox and cholera. But the biggest killer of all times was the Spanish flue of 1918, an unusually deadly influenza pandemic that lasted almost 36 months from January 1918 to December 1920. It infected 500 million people, about a third of the world's population at the time, and wiped out 50 million as the medical community was clueless as to what was needed to contain the pandemic.
In our own current age of magnificent scientific advancements, horrifically virulent flue pandemics have been showing up from time to time making the most powerful human species scurry like helpless rats. The severe acute respiratory syndrome virus afflicted China in 2002, but though deadly, it remained within China because the virus was not so infective. Similarly, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus that swept across Saudi Arabia was also deadly but again not so very infective.
The latest enemy of the corona is a peculiar respiratory syndrome virus threatening the mankind. It is frighteningly infective and more dangerous because the incubation period is as lengthy as 14 days during which no symptoms show up; yet, the afflicted person keeps spreading the virus like wild fire. The virus discovered in Wuhan, China towards the close of December 2019 has been infecting millions.
What must be mentioned here is the fact that visionary Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has shown the way of managing this biological disaster most effectively. Naveen, as usual, has chosen his team of aides that have proven a sense of dedication to serving the distressed. He foresaw much in advance that the unruly flue virus was to be contained by the ‘lockdown' method as mere social distancing would not be possible without a ‘stall-public activities' technique. Prime Minister Modi followed suit because Naveen’s method was absolutely failsafe and bore results overnight. Further, in the cluster infection areas, the Naveen aides clamped a complete shutdown, similar to community curfew, with stringent punitive measures. They got the best testing equipments ahead of wealthy States could think of and organised Covid Hospitals with enough beds and medical experts. So, the infection percentage remains at a mere 0.4. The symptomatic individuals are absolutely fit and fine. Death has occurred only in one case. During the lockdown period, the poor and the disadvantaged are given free food, free provisions, the stranded out-of-State migrant workers are provided free food, shelter and healthcare services.
Lastly, the nearly 5 lakh Odisha migrant labourers stranded all over the country are being transported back by dedicated vehicles with officials and politicians monitoring everyone for smooth passage of the labourers. Panchayati Raj officials, particularly Sarpanches, are told to ensure migrant labourers are put in quarantine homes with real good care. Each one in quarantine is allotted Rs 120 for food and a lumpsum of Rs 2,000 for acquiring personal belongings.
Experts and conscious citizens from around the globe are amazed at the way Odisha is handling the pandemic so deftly. Naveen was also earlier hailed by the rest of the world as the best manager of natural disasters like cyclone and flood. He has now shown that biological disasters too can be managed if there is a will and a sense of dedication.
