PANDEMIC EFFECT

 A forgotten pandemic  a century ago    J K SIVAN 

The present crisis faced by us in India, viz., Coronavirus, is in fact, lesser in effect than  what the country faced when the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu afflicted and affected the people. It was lesser publicised and known in the unaffected areas because of the absence of media which is spreading the news rightly and wrongly faster than the disease itself.  Mahatma Gandhi was one of those affected and battled the vile flu in 1918 while in Gujarat.

The highly infectious and deadly Spanish flu  affected the inmates of the Sabarmathi ashram in Gujarat where 48-year-old Gandhi was  an inmate. It was 4 years after his return from South Africa.  He rested,  consumed liquid diet during "this protracted and first long illness" of his life. When news of his illness spread, a local newspaper wrote: "Gandhi's life does not belong to him - it belongs to India".

The Spanish flue spread through passengers, mainly soldiers returning after the war  disembarking at Bombay Docks in June 1918. Very soon it spread to the rest of India.   Mr JS Turner, the Health Inspector  termed it  as  "like a thief in the night, its onset rapid and insidious". The second attack of the  epidemic began in September in southern parts of India. sprading along the coastline, when people were aware of its presence.

 It is reported that the Spanish flu  killed between 17 and 18 million Indians, more than all the casualties in World War One. India bore a considerable burden of death - it lost 6% of its people. More women - relatively undernourished, cooped up in unhygienic and ill-ventilated dwellings, and nursing the sick - died than men.  It is unfortunate that the  pandemic  Spanish flu  had infected a third of the world's population and claiming lives of people, roughly  between 50 and 100 million.

Gandhi and his febrile associates at the ashram were lucky to recover. In the parched countryside of northern India, the famous Hindi language writer and poet, Suryakant Tripathi, better known as Nirala, lost his wife and several members of his family to the flu. My family, he wrote, "disappeared in the blink of an eye". He found the Ganges river "swollen with dead bodies". Bodies piled up, and there wasn't enough firewood to cremate them. To make matters worse, a failed monsoon led to a drought and famine-like conditions, leaving people underfed and weak, and pushed them into the cities, stoking the rapid spread of the disease. The then Bombay was  the worst hit cities by the  deadly flu.

We are fortunate than our predecessors , because the medical realities are improved and more effective.  Although there's still no cure, scientists have mapped the genetic material of the coronavirus, and there's the promise of anti-viral drugs, and a vaccine. The 1918 flu occurred in the  pre-antibiotic era,   with not enough medical equipment  needed by  the critically ill patients.  Another fact is  Western medicines weren't widely accepted by the Indian patients who relied on local known  indigenous medication.

Over crowding  spreads  the infection, and Bombay then was easily a prey.   With more than 20 million people, Bombay is India's most populous city and Maharashtra, the state where it's located, has reported the highest number of coronivirus cases in the country.

July 1918,  reported 230 people were dying of the  Spanish flu,  every day, up nearly three times from the end of June. "The chief symptoms are high temperature and pains in the back and the complaint lasts three days," The Times of India reported, adding that "nearly every house in Bombay has some of its inmates down with fever". Workers stayed away from offices and factories. More Indian adults and children were infected than resident Europeans. The newspapers advised people to not spend time outside and stay at home. "The main remedy," wrote The Times of India, "is to go to bed and not worry". People were reminded the disease spread "mainly through human contact by means of infected secretions from the nose and mouths".

"To avoid an attack one should keep away from all places where there is overcrowding and consequent risk of infection such as fairs, festivals, theatres, schools, public lecture halls, cinemas, entertainment parties, crowded railway carriages etc," wrote the paper. People were advised to sleep in the open rather than in badly ventilated rooms, have nourishing food and get exercise.  Do  not worry too much about the disease" is the best advice.

In 1918  it was  believed that those returned by ship at Bombay, brought the fever to Bombay, but the government insisted that the crew had caught the flu in the city itself. "This had been the characteristic response of the authorities, to attribute any epidemic that they could not control to India and what was invariably termed the 'insanitary condition' of Indians," observed medical historian Mridula Ramanna in her magisterial study of how Bombay coped with the pandemic.

Now, as the country battles another deadly infection, CORONA VIRUS the government has responded swiftly. But, like a century ago, civilians will play a key role in limiting the virus' spread. And as coronavirus cases climb, this is something India should keep in mind.