Zohaib Shaik
India
Franklin High School
World Health Organization
Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness More than 17 million people die every year from diseases worldwide. India is the second most populated country with about 985 people per square mile. If there were an epidemic or pandemic breakout in India, there would be pure chaos. India is a developing country, with very poor sanitation and poverty. Many of the citizens can’t afford basic health care and about 32.7% of Indians live below the poverty line. India had a terrible experience with the Avian Flu (H5N1) in the past. Since India is densely populated, the number of persontoperson contact is far greater than any other country. After the Avian (H5N1) pandemic, India made a Pandemic
Preparedness Plan. Afterwards, India would participate, when possible, in regional and international pandemic preparedness initiatives and exercises.
The Pandemic Preparedness Plan India created had four major steps. The first was surveillance of human cases of Avian Influenza (H5N1) where cases among birds were reported.
People would be surveyed who were near or associated with the sick birds. Next, there was an early detection of human cases and their management. If someone is sick with the Avian Flu
(H5N1), then anyone who he has touched and his family members would be quarantined.
However, if there is a huge number of people diagnosed with the pandemic, then certain regions of India will be forced to go into “lockdown.” People would not be allowed to leave their homes,
so that the number of person to person contact would substantially decrease. Although a
“lockdown” would limit the number of person to person contact, the economy would drastically suffer. There will be a huge decline in consumer demand because no one will be going to restaurants, stores, or the movies. In addition, the healthy workers will have to stay home and not be able to work. After, there was a containment of the transmission of infection. This is the most important step from the four. The sick person should be isolated from the community and be immediately treated. The doctors treating him should be equipped with the proper equipment and should be fully covered. Lastly, there was the step to decrease social disruption and economic loss. It is crucial to use the media as a tool to stabilize the community.
India believes that it is critical to focus on long term solutions, rather than short term.The first step necessary is to educate the public what to do if a loved one or someone they know has symptoms of an epidemic. The public can be educated on how to act through newspapers and the media. It is extremely important to quickly detect if someone has a disease, so it isn’t turned into an epidemic. In addition, India believes that there should be a partnership between bordering countries. This partnership is crucial because not many countries have enough money to quickly and efficiently respond to a pandemic or epidemic. The partnership could also be created with a developed country. The developed country should be able to provide the developing country with infrastructure, such as hospitals, innovative technology, and free health care services. The technology can be used to create a database for those whom have been infected with an epidemic or pandemic. There could also be a crossgovernmental, multiagency national pandemic preparedness committee that meets regularly established.
Some shortterm solutions are crucial to address, such as vaccines and the distribution of the vaccines. There should be an incentive and a huge amount of money paid to a private organization who finds the vaccine to a pandemic or epidemic disease. This will create a competition between companies to find the antidote first. After the antidote is found, there is the issue of distributing it. Developed countries have priority when the vaccines are being distributed because they are
