In addition pandemics are associated with economic hardships because in such situations the economic activity is affected adversely. On one side the people who fall ill are forced to absent themselves from work. Measures by the governments taken supposedly to control the spread of the disease add to the problem. Poor sections of the society are affected more. We have witnessed this during the lockdown imposed in our county in the end of March, which was done without thorough consultations with the epidemiologists and those working in public health & community medicine

The decision was made without taking effective measures to prevent hardships to the working people who suddenly lost their of jobs and livelihood. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has pointed out "In India, with a share of almost 90 per cent of people working in the informal economy, about 400 million workers in the informal economy are at risk of falling deeper into poverty during the crisis …..forcing many of them to return to rural areas."

It is true that corona infection has involved crores of people around the world and in our own country currently there are over seven lakh active cases. Over 65,000 new Covid-19 cases are being reported every 24 hours pushing the number of COVID patients to more than 32 lakhs. Till now more than 58,000 people have succumbed to the virus. It is therefore a serious issue and we must concentrate on prevention of infection and save lives of people taken ill.

But what is of equal concern is that we cannot ignore other pre-existing diseases as India is the hub of many communicable and non-communicable diseases. The number of morbidity and mortality due to these is nowhere less. But in the last five months many of these diseases have been completely ignored.

Some of the important disease that India is hub to are Tuberculosis (TB), Hepatitis, Diarrhoea, Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease, Cancer and Kidney diseases etc.

India has the largest number of TB cases in the world. As per the latest report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) India accounted for 27 per cent of the total, followed by China with 9 per cent, Indonesia at 8 per cent, Pakistan (6 per cent) and Bangladesh (4 per cent). According to the India TB report 2020 India notifies 24.04 Lakh TB Cases. This is 14 per cent increase over the previous year. The country recorded 79,144 Deaths in 2019. This figure is much lower than the WHO estimate of 4.4 lakh fatalities. However in the absence of any substantive change in the TB control in the last one year, the figures given by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare need to be reconfirmed particularly in view of that in 2018, 4.4 lakh people died from TB that is 1205 patients daily. The corresponding number was 4.1 lakh in 2017.

Diarrhoea and Pneumonia are other deadly diseases in our country. In 2016, almost 261,000 Indian children died before their fifth birthday due to diarrhoea or pneumonia, both preventable diseases. This is the highest toll taken anywhere in the world by the two diseasesa fifth of their global burdenaccording to the 2018 Pneumonia & diarrhoea Progress Report, released on November 12, 2018, which was World Pneumonia Day.

With 1.5 lakh deaths annually and almost 60 million Indians affected, Viral Hepatitis continues to be a serious public health concern. It is estimated that 4 crore people are suffering from Hepatitis B and 0.6-1.2 crore people are suffering from Hepatitis C in India.

According to the National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (NICPR), an estimated 2.25 million people in India live with cancer and more than 1,157,294 new cancer patients are registered every year.

There has been an alarming increase over the past two decades in the prevalence of Coronary Heart Diseases (CHD) and Cardiovascular mortality in India and other south Asian countries. Current estimates from epidemiologic studies from various parts of the country indicate a prevalence of CHD to be between 7% and 13% in urban3–5 and 2% and 7% in rural 6,7 populations. Epidemiologic studies have shown that there are at present over 30 million cases of CHD in this country.

During this period of COVID-19, the patients of above mentioned and several other diseases have been suffering as hospitals are occupied with COVID care. As a result, many of those suffering from chronic diseases have lost their lives. There is urgent need to evolve a comprehensive healthcare system where it is ensured that a balance is maintained between the care of pandemic and the pre-existing diseases.

Some special hospitals have to be built to deal with epidemics while the already existing medical care facilities should continue to provide healthcare to the people suffering from other diseases, failing which there will ensue another crisis of diseases which could have been managed otherwise. Let the COVID-19 be a lesson to move forward. The government has to take healthcare seriously which has been hitherto ignored. It has been generally observed that we tend to forget once the situation has changed. It should not happen now. (IPA Service)