India has an epidemic on their
hands that many of us are completely unaware of and thought maybe that it had
been eradicated or treated in some way. Dengue fever is the current epidemic
that has infringed upon the capitol city of New Delhi. The disease that is Dengue fever has many
symptoms that affect peoples’ daily lives with muscle pain, joint pain,
diarrhea, vomiting and rashes (Wikipedia).This disease can keep people out of
work and maneuvering through their daily lives. The article states, “The
general medical opinion is that tens of thousands in New Delhi have been
infected, and the figure could be in the millions in India.” The government is
trying to pass this issue off as a very small figure in comparison to what it
really is. The main problem is that this disease has been under reported due to
the elections and the government does not want to deal with that type of issue
especially with elections showing up it would reflect badly on them and the
lack of money to solve this problem.
The disease is problematic because it’s
not affecting a small group of people, but a large group which is a social
problem at this point. The inequalities in the nation of India show why. There
are slums everywhere in India even in the urban and more industrialized areas,
how is this a problem? The articles states that the poor are contributing to
the spread of the disease to those who can get treatment. For example, sense
people contract dengue fever they are also more susceptible to other diseases.
An excerpt from the article states, “Residents suspect their housemaids and
cooks to be the carriers of the disease, which is transmitted through the
ingestion of food or drink contaminated by the feces of an infected person.” Therefore
there are outbreaks of all kinds such as gastroenteritis and laryngitis
happening and most things are fecal to oral transmitted. However, the article clearly discusses the
poor are not the only ones to be blamed because mosquitoes which is the cause
of Dengue fever like standing water which are construction sites and fancy
homes as well, but the exchange occurs because of close contact between rich
and poor. Although, there is a big problem because the rich has access to
antibiotics in which they use to combat the disease, the microbes become increasingly
resistant to the most powerful drugs, which in turn allows the disease to be
transmitted back to the poor.
There is no cure for Dengue fever
yet, but there is a research center in New Delhi that have gotten close to
finding a cure and it looks promising and has been tested on lab rats, but even
then it will still be another five years. The other problem with the perpetuation of
research is that the Indian government investment in research is very poor and
the push is coming from the west for a cure. The British have come up with another way to
combat dengue fever by releasing genetically altered males into the population
of mosquitoes whose offspring die before they can fly. The main issues around Dengue fever is that
the amount of inequality allows the disease to be even worse and more people
are infected each day and does not only stop at dengue fever, but leaves people
out of work and can also cause people to fall even more below the poverty
line.
Emily Vestrat 9/26/13 9:55 pm
Works Cited
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