The World Likely To See More Pandemics In Future, Says Dr Arvind Kumar Of Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital

The world has been dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic for six months now and frontline warriors especially medical caregivers are one of the strongest and crucial pillars of this fight against COVID-19. Over a crore of people across the world have been infected by the virus. According to Dr. Arvind Kumar, Chairman, Centre for Chest Surgery and Chest Onco-Surgery and Director, Institute of Robotic Surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, the world will face more such pandemic in the times to come and we need to prepare ourself for it. Dr. Arvind Kumar was speaking at the #UniteWithoutBorders telethon organised by NDTV and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) commonly known as Doctors Without Borders, the independent medical organisation, organised to raise funds to help protect our medical caregivers fighting COVID-19.

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Dr. Arvind Kumar, a corona warrior shared his views about the Coronavirus pandemic and wished it had not happened because COVID-19 has brought the world almost to a grinding halt and has caused misery to people and the whole world. Having said that, Dr. Kumar noted that this isn't the last time a pandemic has hit the world and suggested to be prepared for more such health emergencies. He said,

Now with this climate change and air pollution issue being so glaring and relevant today, I know that we are going to be hit by more and more such pandemics in times to come. So the second thought that comes to my mind instantly is that instead of reacting in an emergency way like we did to this pandemic, we need to make our systems ready for such pandemics; resilient to face the onslaught of such pandemics; able to absorb the shock so that life can go on normally despite this.

Though the source of Novel Coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease has not yet been established but the theory that has been postulated is that the virus originated in bats and from there it transmitted to an intermediary animal, suspected to be a pangolin or snake and then from there possibly affected humans. Other viruses in the coronavirus family like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) were identified in animals like bats, and dromedary camels. This is the reason, Dr. Arvind Kumar suggested to stop animal-human interaction and said,

If you look back at the last 20 years, whether it was SARS, MERS, Ebola, Zika and now Corona, these all are animal viruses which have skipped species and come from animals to humans. Why has it happened? Because of increased human-animal interaction. And with now climate change being what it is, we are going to see more and more of it.

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According to the experts, the SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay for at least the next three to four months. Various mathematical models have predicted a rise in COVID-19 cases in India. For instance, earlier in June, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said that if the current doubling rate of the infection (12-13 days) continues, Delhi will have 5.5 lakh coronavirus cases by July 31 and will require 80,000 beds. Talking about what needs to be done to eliminate the looming crisis, Dr. Kumar said,

Why can't we all unite and make sure we don't hit this number and all the models fail? I wish people start understanding and stop stepping out and take precautions so that we can contain the spread of the virus and mathematical models are proven wrong.

While we continue to live and fight the virus, it's extremely crucial to protect the medical caregivers and at the same time, assist them in this fight. Elaborating on the importance of protecting healthcare professionals, Dr. Kumar said,

I hope we, the healthcare workers, fall sick less and take more care of the patients. Healthcare workers are providers and when they fall sick, they become seekers. So, the number of providers will decrease and seekers will increase. With the rise in patients, we need more caregivers and I hope fewer medical caregivers fall sick and no one dies so that we can take care of our citizens and exit the pandemic.

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