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Simple behavioural change can stop COVID-19 from spreading: Dr Sarma

By R Dutta Choudhury

GUWAHATI, April 2 - Simple behavioural changes can prevent the spread of coronavirus and the Government should strictly enforce the lockdown to break the chain, said Dr Umesh Chandra Sarma. He also said that the death rate in some other diseases is much higher than coronavirus.

Talking to The Assam Tribune, Dr Sarma, who was the founder vice chancellor of the Srimanta Sankaradeva University of Health Sciences and former Director of Medical Education, said that as the disease was detected in Assam much later than other parts of the country, the State Government got the time to prepare itself, which is a positive development. He said that there is no need to panic but at the same time, no one should be complacent.

Dr Sarma, who did his post graduation on Social and Preventive Medicine (Community Medicine) and did MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, pointed out that as per available records, the first case of COVID-19 was detected in Wuhan city of China and a 57 year old woman was the first to be affected in a sea food market and then the disease spread to all over the world.

Dr Sarma said that only simple behavioural changes can stop spreading of the disease. He said that no one should touch the nose, eyes and mouth without properly washing hands and should avoid wearing rings. People should also maintain physical distance as no one knows who the carriers are. �We should consider everyone as a carrier unless proved otherwise and at least one metre physical distance should be maintained,� he added.

Replying to a question on the Government�s decision to go for a 21 day lockdown, Dr Sarma expressed the view that such a lockdown was highly essential to break the chain and the government should strictly enforce it. He suggested that the Government should try to increase the number of testing centres so that more people can be tested. He said that outbreak of such diseases reach a peak and then comes the decline stage.

He expressed the hope that if the chain of transmission can be broken, India would soon see the declining stage of the disease.

Dr Sarma pointed out that though the COVID-19 is spreading very fast all over the world because of the fact that the world has become a global village, the death rate is not very high. So far, the death rate in COVID-19 is less than three per cent, which is much lower than the deaths in some other diseases like encephalitis, complicated dengue, plague etc. He said that people with strong immunity, particularly young persons have less chance of getting affected by the disease. He pointed out that the mortality rate in COVID-19 was higher in case of the people suffering from other diseases.

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