BLIND YET 'WATCHING ' TV

Children of Navjyoti School for the blind, located in Mohanlalganj love “watching” soap serials on TV. “They  follow the family dramas and all that is happening in the country by listening to the voices on TV and “picturing” the characters in their minds”, says Sister Jessy,  principal of the school that houses 65 blind children aged 6 to 14 years.

And if your eyes turn moist with sadness for these “deprived” children, just hold on! They do not feel deprived as they do not know what they miss by way of vision, as they never had it. The term for them is neither “deprived” nor “handicapped”, but “challenged”, indicating that their inability to see poses a challenge for them to achieve almost all that their “visually eqipped” colleagues can. They can sing, dance, play on the swings, study, pass exams and get jobs. The way they appreciate beauty may however be somewhat different: Shreya Ghoshal may be more beautiful to them than Karina Kapoor, as it is through voice and sounds that they perceive the world.

I was amazed to see these children put up a group dance in which they came together at times with their outstreched swinging hands meeting that of their partnersin perfect harmony; so strong is their spatial sense that they could almost “see” where the partner’s hand was at that moment. They also put up a play where their lack of vision made no dent to how they moved around on the stage, faced each other and acted their parts!

Suman showed me how she reads and writes without any vision. Her books and notes are in Brail, a form in which the paper is perforated or elevated in patterns so that alphabets and numbers can be recognized by touching with her fingers. The school also has computers equipped with software that converts the alphabets that we recognize by their 2-dimensional shapes into Brail forms

Blindness afflicts 1.5% of our population making India the country with the largest number of blind people (15 million) of the gliobally estimated 37 million. Lack of vision in children may be of several types. Some have it at birth and then lose it due to damage to their corneas, commonly due to deficiency of Vitamin A, or they may have very high refractive errors like myopia, while some may be blind from birth, as most children in this school are. They have perfectly normal intelligence, and a much enhanced sense of touch and sound.

The children of Navjyoti love music; they sing very well and are very fond of learning the sitar or the drum. And what touched me most was to see that they could laugh and play, and be happy, putting many long faced people with “sights” to shame. A vist to this school taught me much about life.

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 6 september, 2009.

Swine Flu in U.P.

Swine flu has already infected more than a thosand people in this country and claimed 7 Indian lives, and seems poised to spread rapidly across the country causing  a great deal of havoc.  The virus has already infected 1.6 lac people in more than 168 countries of whom 1160 have died. The WHO has termed it a “pandemic”, implying that the disease has become global.  Its entry into India has been late, but with the high population density (jargon for “crowded”) in most cities here, it is expected to spread faster than wild fire.

The swine flu germ is a virus that belongs to the family of Influenza viruses, and has a particular profile termed H1N1.  This particular virus normally causes flu in swines and pigs. Recently this virus mutated and crossed over to man, causing human disease. Further, it has mutated to adapt itself to spread from one person to another and thereby started an infectious cycle amongst humans.  The problem originated in Mexico and spread to other parts of the world. The virus spreads by droplets shed by an infected person while sneezing, coughing or speaking, or when we touch infected places and then put our hands in our nose or mouth.

Infection with any of the influenza viruses (including H1N1) produces similar symptoms: running nose, sore throat, cough, body aches and fever.  Sometimes, the infection becomes severe and the lungs get involved, resulting in shortness of breath or breathlessness. Further progression may cause high fever, fall in blood pressure, shock and failure of several organs of the body and may cause death.

                There is no doubt that this infection is extremely contagious; hence people who come in contact or face to face with an infected person run a high chance of catching it. Hence it is important to isolate infected persons so that they dont shed the virus in the air in crowded places and infect others. Also, personal protection such as wearing masks in crowded places and washing hands with soap and water frequently can help.

                The virus is however not very deadly; what it means is that it proves fatal in a very small proportion of people that it infects. To use statistics, of around a 10000 people that get infected, around 4 will probably have a sever e illness and succumb. Hence the case fatality ration is 0.4, compared to 10 for SAARS in which 100 people died for every 1000 that were infected.  That is the reason why doctors are saying “don’t panic”. It is a relatively lower risk disease.

                Most people who get infected with H1N1 get well on their own, just as they do for all seasonal flu infections: a few days of illness, take a few paracetamol tablets, warm saline gargles, ginger tea, and that is all. Only in a very few, the infection becomes so sever that he needs a special antiviral medicine called Tamiflu.

                Both the testing facilities and the medicine Tamiflu have been made available in a few government hospitals in Lucknow. At the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, the Department of microbiology has been equipped to carry out the test, and if need be, dispense the medicines.

                The infection is expected to spread and cause illness in many of us over the next few months. The present handicap is the limited places where the test is available and that the government has banned Tamiflu from being sold in medicine shops, as it fears there could be panic testing and buying. It is hoped that the government hospitals and outlets are able to cope with the surge of patients that this pandemic may create.  In UK for instance, any person suspected to have the infection can call into a helpline number, and if the symptoms suggest swine flu, is provided the medicineds without even having to meet a doctor.

                Vaccines to prevent swine flu are not available yet; several countries and laboratories are working hard to develop one. It might take around 6 more months before we can have one in India. Till then, prevention, widespread  and easy availability for testing and easy access to medicines may help check spread of this virus , and save many lives.

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 6 september, 2009.

Swine Flu: Who's Making the Bucks?

While swine flu is still spreading, the mass hysteria and the whining of the media seems to be settling. People seem to have come to terms with the following facts:

1.       1)It is an infection caused by a variant (H1N1) of the Influenza A virus, that regularly causes seasonal flu in India and elsewhere

2.       2)It spreads from one person to another through droplets of saliva shed while speaking, sneazing or coughing, or by touching contaminated surfaces.

3.       3)The symptoms of this infection are similar to those of ordinary flu: running nose, cough, fever, body aches, and rarely breathlessness. You can’t distinguish the 2 by symptoms alone.

4.       4)The risk to life with either of the 2 infections is very small; around 99.9 % of those infected recover on their own, even without any special medicines like Tamiflu. Local figures show that of 700 people tested at SGPGI, 80 had swine flu, almost all of whomhave recoverd and none have died.

Who then benefited from the mass hysteria that was created a month or 2 ago?

First, it was the media ofcourse. They had something new to blare, and the more the viewers could be frightened, the viewing of their channels and the TRP went up.

Second, the mask manufacturers and retail shops selling them. Mask-makers vyed with one another to get their brands endorsed as the exclusive preventive mantra. Retailers hoarded and sold masks at exorbitant prices while gulible well-meaning citizen coughed up large amounts to buy them.

Crowded and unprepared government hospitals and unaccustomed CMOs had their fleeting moments of glory when the rich and the powerful  knocked (or banged) on their doors for Swine flu tests or doses of the “magic drug” Tamiflu.

 Private hospitals and labs, which were anxiously waiting and parleying with the government, have now started beaming from ear to ear.  Panic is driving the rich to their doors for the test priced at Rs 10,000/- . “What is the value of money before life?”  is what they will tell their rich clients before fleecing them.

The pharmaceutical cmpanies probably got a raw deal; their Tamiflu was not allowed to be sold at retail shops. Their stock prices did not rocket this time the way they did during the last Avian flu epidemic. Why was the government so unkind to only them? 

And those who benefited most were companies manufacturing the diagnostic kits for swine flu. Two USA based companies, Invitrogen and Allied Biosystems, quietly made huge profits as panickstricken governments of developing countries mopped up their kits. In fact, USA with 16% of its GDP going to health, did not undertake such widespread testing for swine flu as we did with our meagre 2%. Our recent national frenzy with swine flu is helping companies come out of the economic recession.

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 30 august , 2009.

TAJ (Agra) : Tourists and Health

The Taj is iconic of Indian tourism and perhaps draws the largest number of International tourists. Those who dare to visit India and Agra are charmed and awed by the pristine and majestic beauty of this marble edifice.  It is a common site to see International tourists arriving in air conditioned buses, huddling in groups with mineral water bottles in their hands, posing for that drawing-room-mantle photograph with Taj in the background, and then wrenching their noses and stealing glances at the squalor around the city of Agra darting off back to Delhi.

We are lucky that the Taj and Agra are in India and in Uttar Pradesh, and that it is a monument admired and sought after by tourists from across the world, but can we market the Taj alone without improving the surroundings, the city of Agra and the fabled Yamuna that are so intricately entwined with each other?

Tourists are warned before arriving at Agra to be careful of vendors, touts and self styled guides who might take them for a ride, or perhaps even rob them, to be careful with the food and water they consume – safer to carry your own water and to eat at their starred hotel, that they should not venture out into the city unescorted, that they should stay huddled together and not wander off anywhere on their own, and that they should carry their medicines as attacks of tummy cramps, loose motions, vomiting and fever often come free with their Agra package!  I marvel at the tourists who do finally make it to admire the beauty of Taj with so much weighing on their minds.

Any one visiting Paris or Heidelberg would recall how tourists are made to feel safe to wander anywhere they wish on their own, browse through curio shops in small streets, sit at roadside cafe’s or bistros and taste the local cuisine or wine, watch the clear waters of Seine or Neckar rivers and perhaps take an exhilerating boatride and come back safely to bed in their hotels with a dream-cum-true feel. 

If tourism in Agra has to get the much needed boost, we need to look beyond the Taj. Yamuna needs dredging and cleaning and its banks need to be made free of strewn multicoloured polythene bags. We need to ensure that shops selling “pethas” are hygienic even for the delicate western tummies, that hoodlums don’t cause uneasiness to visitors, that roads are indeed safe not just from goons but also the police, and medical help of international standard is available a phone call away to make our visitors feel safe and reassured. They will then be able to ejoy the beauty of Taj much more and encourage their friends too to come to Agra, UP and India.

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times)