Hello and welcome to The Moving Curve. I’m Rukmini, a data journalist who lives in Chennai. Every night on this mini-cast, I consider one question around the novel coronavirus epidemic in India. Tonight I’m considering this question — will India’s test-and-contain strategy work, or do we need to move into the treatment phase?
A little about the WHO’s 1991 guidelines on the syndromic approach for STDs: https://www.who.int/hiv/topics/vct/sw_toolkit/guidelines_management_sti.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233287/
Fevers and coughs were the two most commonly reported short-term illnesses in the India Human Development Survey in 2011–12. 17% of people reported that they had had a fever, and 12.6% a cough in the previous month. But the poor were least likely to seek care: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-s-poor-suffer-cough-and-cold-routinely-making-coronavirus-detection-difficult-11585544409496.html
As always, there are no easy answers or easy decisions. A new virus might require a new public health approach.
Thank you for listening. This episode was edited by Anand Krishnamoorthi. Tomorrow — a new question.
