A pandemic that must shake us into action

A few months ago, no one could have imagined that a microscopic microbe could ever consume the globe. Yet it has. The international economy has shut down, halting our lives, limiting families to their homes and affecting millions worldwide.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the incapacity of governments and the international community to address a health emergency on this scale. While we were assured that we have the technology and resources to respond, the coronavirus has shown either that we had misplaced our trust on scientific advances, or that our technological capabilities have not been oriented in the right direction.

As Nepal’s first test-tube babies conceived through IVF technology, us twins are products of technological advances in medicine and healthcare. Science was a boon to our family, and technology bestowed its gift on us.

In other fields of medicine, technology has allowed researchers to find cures and treatments to chronic diseases, and to develop remote monitoring systems through improved connectivity. However, information technology has not been fully exploited in addressing curative and therapeutic aspects of medicine.

Newborn deaths and a vision for a post-pandemic Nepal, Marty Logan

The inability to prioritise family and community health on a global scale and the inability of medical technology with epidemiology and non-pharmaceutical public health measures has cost us dearly. The current pandemic has exposed flaws in what we considered an advanced state of medicine.

The novel coronavirus outbreak is not the first, nor will it be the last. There have been even more deadly, uncontrolled epidemics in history like the Black Death that wiped out half of Europe’s population, or the Spanish Flu of 1918 that killed up to 40 million people, half of them in India. More recently there was the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the influenza subtype H1N1 and the MERS epidemic in 2013.

The real question is: with all our expertise in epidemiology and genetics why did scientists not foresee this one coming? Partly, it is because technological advances and the budgets to fund research into Artificial Intelligence and even viral research is skewed in favour of military applications. The remaining resources go to space exploration. Finding vaccines and cures for diseases that afflict poorer countries, like malaria and tuberculosis, are neglected.

Pandemic pangs, Nepali Times

Before this pandemic arose, governments of rich countries felt it was a Chinese problem that could not threaten their shores. There was a failure of the political leadership in rich countries engrossed with endless growth, geopolitical rivalry, and weapons research to take it seriously. Just as populist leaders denied climate change, they also ignored scientists warning about the potential of this deadly virus to spread.

The neglect is now most tragically seen in the acute shortage of medical equipment from the very basic N95 masks to personal protective equipment and ventilators. Countries that were once considered to have the best healthcare systems have been most vulnerable to treat and contain the scourge.

COVID-19 has also exposed that nation states operate in the self-interest, ignoring international cooperation, first try to protect their borders and compete for scarce medical supplies. The pandemic should teach us the lesson that that is not a one-off crisis -- we ignore nature at our own peril. The virus has learnt to use human hosts networked with global air travel to spread across the planet, it does not respect national boundaries.

No doubt, the spread of the virus will proceed towards a gradual decline in the total global case load. There is a danger that we will forget the lessons from it as things return to normal, the global economy springs back, and air travel resumes.

Climate, COVID-19 and China, Rastraraj Bhandari

The world must converge towards rapid, efficient advancement of technology services through a sound healthcare system and distribution at the community level. Convergence in healthcare means bringing together advances in IT, AI, bio-medical sciences and genetic studies, and using digital platforms to link citizens remotely to medical institutions.  Epidemiological tools like HealthMap, VivaLNK, and platforms like WeChat, Alipay, and QQ have been used in containing the coronavirus, but they need to be spread more extensively.

A potent chain of command and decentralisation of health authorities is  integral in responding to such outbreaks, but the way the current pandemic is being dealt with at the local, national and global level have left many of our generation skeptical. We cannot pin our hopes on the present health system, and our futures are uncertain.

This inability to rely on governments during such a dangerous pandemic  leads us to conclude that enhancing individual immunity of the body, and thinking globally about the response to future outbreaks is the only way.

For Nepal, this means strengthening self-resilience at the national level, having preparedness plans in place, enhancing the healing power of nature, and ensuring that medical care is more equitable.

Yugeshwor Koirala and Yugottam Koirala are twin brothers, Nepal’s first to be born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF). They are students of Kaasthamandap Vidhyalaya.