The ‘New Normal’ of the Corona pandemic

Thingnam Rajshree and Rajendra Kshetri
Contd from previous issue
Preventive medicine categorizes four levels prevention each categorizing certain aspects of a disease’s development with the needful interventions to deal with each category respectively.
The first level is the primordial prevention indicated before the onset of the disease itself and aims to ‘inhibit the emergence of environmental, economic, social and cultural determinants of lifestyles that are known to increase the risk of the disease.’ It is basically about making healthy choices which would lead to less occurrence of the disease. It talks about the epidemiological insights of diseases relating it with social and cultural factors.
The second level deals more pronouncedly with infectious diseases and delegates the necessity of public health. It ‘seeks to lower the incidence of disease and other departures from good health by controlling causes and risk factors. It comprises of measures that prevent the occurrence of a disease by individual and collective efforts such as improved nutrition, immunization, and eliminating environmental risks.’ (ibid)
Again, it needs to be emphasized that the coronavirus cannot be eliminated but getting infected with it and the risks of getting the infection can be reduced. With it being a highly infectious disease if we were to eliminate the risks of getting it would enable us to control the pandemic and it is as basic as that. But without understanding this we cannot just wait for our turn to get the infection and then get the necessary treatment. Thus, the importance of vaccination and reducing our risks of getting the infection is of utmost necessity. Boosting our immune through a good diet, maintaining physical and social distancing, using face masks in the correct manner, washing our hands regularly, using sanitizer, etc., are all priority responsibilities we all need to follow and advocate right now.
But in order to make these practices assimilate into our lifestyles more effectively certain steps need to be taken up in order to make the general public thoroughly aware of what all these are, why it is necessary and how it can be effectively implemented. With the technological developments almost everyone has access to smartphones and the internet. But with these tools being flooded with information the general public often has a sense of confusion with regards to the pandemic and many in fact fall victims to hoax thereby preventing them to take up essential and necessary actions.
One possibility would be the utilization of popular culture mediums to the maximum possible to make informed and most urgent information reach the public with precision. Only when this awareness is achieved fully will the public understand the value and the urgency of the situation thereby facilitating the accustomization to the interventions in a more efficacious manner filling that cultural lag. If we had not known how to cook we shall be eating raw and if we had not known how to cook properly we shall still be eating raw. Therefore, the ‘what’, ‘why’ and  ‘how’ of these interventions need to be thoroughly understood by all.
But all these interventions also need to be understood critically with relation to cultural, economic and social contexts. The nutritional chart implemented for other parts of the world will be difficult to adapt in Manipur because of the difference in the eating pattern of our society with that or northern India for instance, or the limited availability or access to certain food products. This may be due to seasonal, economic, productivity factors and many more.
So finding an alternative nutritional chart for boosting our immunity by nutritional experts which caters to our cultural or economic conditions would be necessary. Or the generous use of sanitizers or masks would be a costly affair for many economically weak households in our state. Likewise, various other interventions taken up need to be assessed contextually by experts and concerned authorities to make it adaptable and accessible to everyone and anyone equally. The social determinants of health (SDH) which the World Health Organization defines as the “non-medical factors which influence health outcomes” needs to be thoroughly understood and taken into account to make all these possible.
The third level is the secondary prevention which aims to ‘intervene before the disease arises either by reducing the risk factors or by treating the underlying abnormality’. It is directed towards diseases with ‘measurable risk factors or an abnormal condition that predates the emergence of disease.’ The interventions involved include early detection, screening, tracing contacts in case of infectious disease, interrupting the progression of the disease to a more serious stage, etc.
(To be contd)