Coronavirus may have its origin in China and is currently wreaking havoc there. But it’s official now that the world in on the threshold of another major medical exigency and the helplessness is distressingly all over since there is really little treatment arsenal, so far to contain this mysterious and lethal virus. The challenge is gradually proving insurmountable since the medical fraternity is both ill-formed and thus ill-prepared. An hour-to-hour track of news sites devoting their time and space religiously to Coronavirus will show how the arc is spreading and even the most unexpected frontiers far away, specifically from China or Asia, are coming under its influence. Parallels are being drawn with the outbreak of AIDS in mid-eighties of the last century, but, the fear looming large is the present challenge might not surpass that catastrophe even. A China travel history had so far been attributed as the singular cause of getting infected with the virus, but, after Saturday’s confirmation that the US cases found in its West Coast that are definitely without any such ‘sojourn connection’ has increased jitters, which actually in medical parlance means it’s not a zone or country centric phenomenon as originally assumed, but a more serious one in terms of capacity to originate, contaminate and spread.
Besides the casualties in terms of deaths and those fighting for survival which is nearly 3000 worldwide and 85,000 plus confirmed cases as on Saturday, that which has turned out to be at the receiving end is the global economy. There is hardly any stock exchange left in the world which hasn’t felt the heat with unprecedented fall of indexes resulting in massive erosion of investor wealth. Expectedly, the waves have touched India and Friday has seen the bloodbath with wiping out of investor wealth to the tune of a mammoth Rs 5.45 lakh crore. This is really a bad news for the economy since the recession, exclusively due to internal reasons, is already a great concern. Love or hate China, it is a matter of record that the Indian economy, cutting across multiple sectors is heavily dependent on that country since a large part of the raw materials have to be imported from there. The industry watchers have estimated that due to the Coronavirus triggered supply-chain disruption, the hardest hit will be pharma, chemicals and electronics, resulting in increased prices of products by up to 10 per cent, ultimately to be passed on to the general consumer.
Even if India has so far been untouched medically, concerns persist given the escalating global havoc and confusion. It is also a great reminder that no medical complacency should be allowed and a reinforced mechanism must be kept ready.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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