Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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31 children died of diphtheria in September; nearly half of the diphtheria cases reported globally are from India The leafy, unhurried campus of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation-run Maharishi Valmiki Infectious Diseases Hospital (MVIDH) masks an ugly truth. Witness to 31 child deaths due to diphtheria last month, with the number of cases and the death toll continuing to rise, this medical facility has become the face of everything that can go wrong with India’s Universal Immunisation Programme and its subsequent disease management. Highly contagious The 31 deaths, caused by the highly contagious disease of the upper respiratory system, could have been prevented through vaccination and strict surveillance. According to the findings of a probe committee set up by the Municipal Corporation, the children died despite being brought to the 150-bed general hospital in the capital due to lack of anti-diphtheria serum, which wasn’t procured on time. An enquiry has revealed that stocks of 1,400 vials at the MVID Hospital were exhausted by December 2, 2017, and the next batch of 200 anti-diphtheria serum arrived here only by September 23, 2018. By this time, several children were dead. Services at the hospital also suffer on account of lack of staff to attend to critical patients, absence of basic medical facilities such as isolation wards, intensive care units, ventilators, laboratories, X-ray services and ambulances. According to corporation records, over 550 people have died due to diphtheria in the capital between 2012 and 2017 — 56 deaths in 2012, 71 in 2013, 110 in 2014, 88 in 2015, 133 in 2016, and 102 in 2017. Most of the diphtheria patients, said doctors at the MVID Hospital, come from western Uttar Pradesh, and some are from within the city. Those from the city are mainly migrant labourers. “Almost all the children who are admitted have had no vaccination or [have undergone] incomplete vaccination. They come for treatment a week or more after the infection has set in, by which time it becomes difficult to help them,” said a doctor at MVID’s diphtheria unit.
