The highlight of a visit to Kashmir has to be an overnight stay at one of the gorgeous houseboats on Dal Lake. A tranquil and beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. The lake is fed by runoff from the Himalays. Several houseboats are moored around the lake.
But the world famous Dal Lake, one of the largest natural lakes in India is dying. In Srinagar, the lake is carrying the burden of several hamlets, floating gardens, hotels and lodges. Once heart wrenchingly beautiful, the lake today takes in the entire city’s sewage. Human refuse from the houseboats is discharged into the lake. As a result, the quality of the lake is deteriorating and its vast aquatic reserves is dangerously shrinking. The growth of a mysterious red weed during the last decade has further choked the lake.
Besides being a tourist attraction and a source of livelihood to hundreds of localities, the Dal lake has been a source of inspiration for many poets and painters. But the local people, who have observed the ecological damage over the years knows that the end of this beautiful lake is not very far. In not more than two decades the lake might be reduced to a dirty pond.
If we refer to the data, in 1200 A.D this lake was 75 sq km in area. By the 1980s the area reduced to 25 sq km, and today it has shrunk to merely 12 sq km. So the first question that comes to our mind is- How? Was the lake stroked with a geological bomb? What caused such serious degradation to this beautiful lake? The human settlements, water pollution, construction within and on the periphery of the lake, and continued agricultural activity (like the floating gardens), lead to the steady degradation of the lake.
Today 3,00,000 people are living in the catchment area and over 30,000 live on the lake. The floating garden , which provide 50 percent of the vegetables to the Kashmir Valley, is a major threat to the lake. Though beautiful, but it is a ticking time bomb. The debris and organic waste from these garden settles into the lake bed, making it shallow. The lake which was 17 feet a decade ago is now only 9 feet deep today. Shocked? I was too! Though the government is taking steps to conserve this lake, but not as concrete as it should be. (I saw in one of the news channel that the UPA government invested Rs. 9 cr. to buy MPs to protect the falling government. The ministers were displaying bundles of cash in the Parliament.) Politics apart!! Although the state administration has tried to relocate people from the lake to residential colonies, it has not met with any success. As these people were not provided any means of livelihood, they were forced to return back to the lake. In ancient time, some people were given right on the lake by the then kings. People have exploited this privilege and have brought up hotels and lodges by filling parts of the lake. Such construction has caused a serious ecological unbalance.
Above all, the city’s sewage is been continuously dumped into the lake- untreated! The city of Srinagar, one of the hot-spots of Indian Tourism, do not have a proper drainage and sewage system, till date. A recent report from the Directorate of Environment (Kashmir) stated that the disposal of sewage was one of the main factors behind the growth of algae in the lake. There came a red warning in August 1991, whereby a thick layer of red algal bloom Euglena rubra - appeared on the surface of the lake. The local fish population of Shizo thorax declined, and the faeces of warm-blooded animals contaminated the water. Surprisingly enough, the important water plant - Eurayle ferox - too disappeared from the lake due to the deteriorating water quality.
Revival of tourism has brought its own problem. During the peak months, the Dal lake is choked with plastic bags and coke cans. People litter around this majestic gift of nature to our country.
Dal lake pollution provides us with a classic example of how little we appreciate the beauty of nature. Dal lake-much visited, little understood-has become a pathetic sight. It no longer cleans the body; it only saps the body and sags the soul!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
PULSE POLIO PROGRAMME AND OPV---- The Government Stand
When Albert Sabin discovered Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) he made a point to the WHO that the vaccines contain live polio virus. Though cheaper than IPV, it carries a risk of pathogenic reversion in the vaccinated individual. He reminded the countries using OPV to immunize children that it is not the ultimate, but the immediate solution to control polio, and that they should switch back to IPV or a clinically balanced combination of OPV and IPV. The issue that we have come across in recent years in our country is that over 4,000 immunized children with OPV have shown polio like symptoms and there are numbers above it who have died. The question arises when majority of countries e.g. USA has recourse to use IPV since 2000, how India justifies the continued use of OPV even today? And the most serious question that prevails –Can India, ever become Polio free?
Modern polio vaccines are based on viruses grown in bulk in tissue cultures derived from monkey kidney cells. Live attenuated vaccines such as OPV generally elicit a stronger and long-lasting immune response than is provoked by ‘killed’ viral antigen preparations like IPV. The strong IgA response elicited by OPV in the gut also gives a high level protection against infection with wild-type, I repeat, ‘wild-type’. The ease with which an oral vaccine can be given and its low cost has made it very popular. Hence OPV has replaced IPV in many countries.
However we cannot ignore the danger associated with the OPV. As I have mentioned before, OPV contains live virus, so there is always a possibility of pathogen reversion in the vaccinated individuals. Genetic changes that occur in the attenuated strain are reversed, or new mutations are acquired, to provide a virus with similar properties to the wild-type strain. The closer the similarity between the wild-type strain and the attenuated strain, the greater the chances of pathogenic reversion occurring. In the past three years, over 4,000 children have been tested positive with vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP). By contrast with OPV, IPV has been responsible for only one instance of VAPP in its 50 years history. For this reason countries like Netherlands, USA and many more have increasingly switched back to using IPV, or a combination of IPV followed by OPV to maximize the safety and effectiveness of each vaccine.
Trusting that the children can be saved from Polio, we are vaccinating them with OPV. But simultaneously, we are also throwing them in the clutches of VAPP. Injections are costly but less risky. In comparison, drops are 25 times cheap, and easy to administer, the least responsibility our government is ready to carry. In recent times the government has declared that some children whose stool did not yield wild-type polio virus, still yielded vaccine virus. Many doctors, who expected such instance of vaccine associated paralysis to be around 180, were alarmed that in the last three years alone they totaled to about 4,400. Doctors are raising ethical concerns about such issues and started addressing the press that Pulse Polio Programme has failed in India, and that it has many associated problems. A recent example of such concern was published in The Hindu, Delhi Edition.
During these 12 years that the Pulse Polio Programme continued, people, both lay and medical practitioners alike, were misled by the Government’s propaganda: that “polio drops are completely safe”, “Get your children vaccinated again and again”. Media, filmdom, and even the Honorable President of India were made use of in spreading this untruth. The Government of India knew well though -like the WHO did too- that VAPP cases would surely emerge in the process. Had the Government taken people into confidence, explained the risks involved in this programme truthfully, gone on with it with their consent, examined any VAPP cases that emerged, and paid pre-arranged compensations to such victims honestly, it would have been OK. Instead, by keeping the information on VAPP secret, by spreading untruth, by declaring the numbers of only “confirmed wild polio cases” and putting all other Acute flaccid paralysis cases (AFPs) into “discarded” category- in an apparent effort to cover up the exact numbers of VAPP victims, by not taking into account the deaths following vaccination, and by employing many such devious methods, the Government of India complicated the issue.
A very simple answer to this behavior of the Government of India was drawn in a seminar that occurred at AIMS. The panel of doctors participated derived the result that India continue to hide from its responsibility because it do not want the huge funds that it receives from the WHO to stop. India every year receives millions of dollars from WHO for Polio eradication. There exists corruption at the top ministry involving the constructive deploy of these funds. Had India sincerely taken steps to eradicate Polio, Polio would have been a history. But yet even the Pulse Polio Programme, the trusted and famous endeavour of the Government of India, has failed to reach the remote part of Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, Uttrakhand, MP and many eastern states of India, where this PPP is not sincerely monitored.
After pondering over the issue for a long time, I concluded that all I can do is to create awareness among the people. People should understand the threats associated with the use of OPV. And now, it’s their own responsibility to protect their children from Polio and VAPP. The Government of India, like always, has failed to carry its responsibility in this matter also. One thing our government never fails in is- “Failing again and again!”
Modern polio vaccines are based on viruses grown in bulk in tissue cultures derived from monkey kidney cells. Live attenuated vaccines such as OPV generally elicit a stronger and long-lasting immune response than is provoked by ‘killed’ viral antigen preparations like IPV. The strong IgA response elicited by OPV in the gut also gives a high level protection against infection with wild-type, I repeat, ‘wild-type’. The ease with which an oral vaccine can be given and its low cost has made it very popular. Hence OPV has replaced IPV in many countries.
However we cannot ignore the danger associated with the OPV. As I have mentioned before, OPV contains live virus, so there is always a possibility of pathogen reversion in the vaccinated individuals. Genetic changes that occur in the attenuated strain are reversed, or new mutations are acquired, to provide a virus with similar properties to the wild-type strain. The closer the similarity between the wild-type strain and the attenuated strain, the greater the chances of pathogenic reversion occurring. In the past three years, over 4,000 children have been tested positive with vaccine-associated paralytic polio (VAPP). By contrast with OPV, IPV has been responsible for only one instance of VAPP in its 50 years history. For this reason countries like Netherlands, USA and many more have increasingly switched back to using IPV, or a combination of IPV followed by OPV to maximize the safety and effectiveness of each vaccine.
Trusting that the children can be saved from Polio, we are vaccinating them with OPV. But simultaneously, we are also throwing them in the clutches of VAPP. Injections are costly but less risky. In comparison, drops are 25 times cheap, and easy to administer, the least responsibility our government is ready to carry. In recent times the government has declared that some children whose stool did not yield wild-type polio virus, still yielded vaccine virus. Many doctors, who expected such instance of vaccine associated paralysis to be around 180, were alarmed that in the last three years alone they totaled to about 4,400. Doctors are raising ethical concerns about such issues and started addressing the press that Pulse Polio Programme has failed in India, and that it has many associated problems. A recent example of such concern was published in The Hindu, Delhi Edition.
During these 12 years that the Pulse Polio Programme continued, people, both lay and medical practitioners alike, were misled by the Government’s propaganda: that “polio drops are completely safe”, “Get your children vaccinated again and again”. Media, filmdom, and even the Honorable President of India were made use of in spreading this untruth. The Government of India knew well though -like the WHO did too- that VAPP cases would surely emerge in the process. Had the Government taken people into confidence, explained the risks involved in this programme truthfully, gone on with it with their consent, examined any VAPP cases that emerged, and paid pre-arranged compensations to such victims honestly, it would have been OK. Instead, by keeping the information on VAPP secret, by spreading untruth, by declaring the numbers of only “confirmed wild polio cases” and putting all other Acute flaccid paralysis cases (AFPs) into “discarded” category- in an apparent effort to cover up the exact numbers of VAPP victims, by not taking into account the deaths following vaccination, and by employing many such devious methods, the Government of India complicated the issue.
A very simple answer to this behavior of the Government of India was drawn in a seminar that occurred at AIMS. The panel of doctors participated derived the result that India continue to hide from its responsibility because it do not want the huge funds that it receives from the WHO to stop. India every year receives millions of dollars from WHO for Polio eradication. There exists corruption at the top ministry involving the constructive deploy of these funds. Had India sincerely taken steps to eradicate Polio, Polio would have been a history. But yet even the Pulse Polio Programme, the trusted and famous endeavour of the Government of India, has failed to reach the remote part of Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, Uttrakhand, MP and many eastern states of India, where this PPP is not sincerely monitored.
After pondering over the issue for a long time, I concluded that all I can do is to create awareness among the people. People should understand the threats associated with the use of OPV. And now, it’s their own responsibility to protect their children from Polio and VAPP. The Government of India, like always, has failed to carry its responsibility in this matter also. One thing our government never fails in is- “Failing again and again!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)