It is only when a calamity has been caused and death gives that petrifying knocking at our lives when a bell rings in our minds to be awake to the situation at hand. Much is the case with the ailment of the deadly yet avoidable disease of Swine Flu. In the last few days, the disease has claimed the lives of four people in the city alone. And to ensure that the city does not face any more deaths because of the disease, the state government along with the municipal corporation and all the health-related NGOs came together. Yet, the fact that the people fail to come to terms with is, it is not a disease that can be fought over by the private health agencies alone. Instead the lack of awareness and the kind of caution that needs to be taken at the personal level may help a lot to drive the lethal ailment away.
It was only recently that a pregnant woman died of the disease since she did not get the right medical aid.
“It is because that people lack the right kind of information around the disease, which is why it is now posing a threat to many lives. And it is both our responsibility and duty to put a stop to it.
-Ayesha Kadri
Further, the BMC conducted a thorough survey in the areas of Kurla and Bhandup. A total of 3,776 people and 750 families were medically checked in Kurla and whereas 2026 people of 525 families were checked in the Tilak Nagar area of Bhandup. In fact, the BMC has been organizing a lot of programs for making the people aware about a lot of diseases like dengue, malaria, swine flu. Nonetheless, when Mumbai Live tried reaching out to the people to know why such efforts seem to be in vain, it was inferred that on the contrary people did not have all that much of faith on BMC itself.
On talking to the people residing in the area, the locales seemed to allege BMC for not being alive to the situation. The area, on the other hand, did not seem to be all that clean and even when the BMC officials go to these areas to run tests on the people for this disease, the women residing in the area simply decline from getting themselves tested.
Further, Mumbai Live, in an effort to dig in deep about the issue at hand, spoke to the chief health officer Dr Jitendra Jadhav in Bhandup. He stated, that the disease of swine flu is not only scattering in the state of Maharashtra. As a matter of fact, the stricken from different states as well, come down to Mumbai to get themselves treated which is why it starts spreading here. He cited the instance of the woman coming down from Allahabad via Kolhapur after which she was admitted to a hospital in Sion where she was diagnosed with Swine Flu. He further adds, to seize the spreading of the disease, it is critical that we keep our surroundings clean.
What is Swine Flu?
Swine Flu is actually a contagious disease. As a matter of fact, Swine Influenza or Swine Flu forms to be a type of the Influenza disease. It is a moderately new strain of an influenza virus-A that causes symptoms that are akin to regular flu. This virus itself is known as H1N1. In fact, this infection took the shape of an epidemic in the year 2009 and 2010, but the WHO had declared this epidemic to be completely uprooted on 10 August 2009. The virus was very first identified in Mexico in April 2009. It was therefore termed as ‘Swine Flu’ because the virus found in it was identical to the one that causes influenza in pigs. This disease is generally spread through the mouth and nose.
Symptoms:
•Chills
•Fever
•Coughing
•Sore throat
•Runny or stuffy nose
•Body aches
•Fatigue
•Diarrhea
•Nausea and vomiting
As per the Chief Health Officer Dr Bhupendra Patil, Swine Flu is a contagious disease and can spread from one person to another. Hence, to stop the disease, the people need to be alive to the situation. Hence, to create awareness amongst people a good number of rallies, campaigns are being conducted and posters are being held up. But till the time, we ourselves do not take the initiative to keep our surroundings swept clean, it will be difficult to stop the spreading of this disease.
Share
Tweet
