Every new year bring freshness and hope for better of anything that we wish for - our health, wealth and happiness. It is only through this early beginning in time and space, we strive eagerly to do better with what we envision in upcoming days, weeks, months and years. Well for me - this new year 2016 is a mixture of celebration, intro-inspection and challenges ahead !! Therefore - I would like to explore oneself, society and the evolving infectious diseases landscape through the lens of socio - political dynamics in the community, the nations and the globe.
Looking into yourself deeper is a challenge in itself. We got to admit it upfront. For this task, either you read and write seriously what you see, hear, feel and observe in your "surrounding" environment or seriously consider yourselves as an ascetics or yogi. Well for me - the first path is more realistic and practical, since the second path of ascetics is not wired inside my pysche !! So let us be practical and go into the thinking process now immediately. When we talk of intro inspection or even the act of observing the external world, Rudyard Kipling always comes in my mind the very first. Now and at this moment - I wish I had read and known about Rudyard Kipling - master author early in my early childhood when i was in my village far away from Kathmandu. I also wish, I was brought up in an "academic" environment where I could have read all children books and such books authored by Kipling and O Henry early on during my childhood. Well - not all are fortunate since we did not have even a single library in our district !! But, on the other hand, who else got that infinite liberty to climb up the hills, go fishing, catch frogs, ride buffalo and taste wild berries and get stunk with wild bees !! Now i think - those days in the wild were our library of nature. It is after all - it is you and most of the time - the physical and social environment that we grow with is more environment. With this sensible thought - Kipling said and wrote famously:
We can also relate the above statement to "child - like" innocence with curious mind. It is only through curiosity we are able to inquire and raise brave and even funny questions. In ancient Sanskrit texts too - there is an equivalent mantra - कारण: कारण, which means "There are series of reasons for every reason !!" Succinctly - this is exactly the same principle what we strive to excel in the field of applied epidemiology or even in our day to day activities (most of the time we may fail to stick to divine principle !!). Noteworthy, however, I would say in sincerity - being a student of public health, we have been trained and taught to think through an approach of bio - medical science, where our conceptual framework and knowledge in "real" field scenario seems to be limited !! This is being realized by many public health experts like Paul Farmer along with other prominent researchers, who have seriously felt "real" gap in global health practices in recent 2013 - 2016 Ebola pandemic that created havoc in West Africa [2]. So the question arise among us: "Are we the victim of compartment syndrome?" Here I am not referring to acute surgical condition of muscle inflammation within fascia, instead it is a derogatory term for behavior or thinking pattern that is a bit traditional or confined to narrow thoughts or practice, where our usual prescription would be to "think out of the box". In other word, we could see this pattern more in the field of medicine where there is a race for super specialization so much so that we sometime say that one day there could be "left eye specialist versus right eye specialist" !! This is an increasing trend even in Nepal.
Looking into yourself deeper is a challenge in itself. We got to admit it upfront. For this task, either you read and write seriously what you see, hear, feel and observe in your "surrounding" environment or seriously consider yourselves as an ascetics or yogi. Well for me - the first path is more realistic and practical, since the second path of ascetics is not wired inside my pysche !! So let us be practical and go into the thinking process now immediately. When we talk of intro inspection or even the act of observing the external world, Rudyard Kipling always comes in my mind the very first. Now and at this moment - I wish I had read and known about Rudyard Kipling - master author early in my early childhood when i was in my village far away from Kathmandu. I also wish, I was brought up in an "academic" environment where I could have read all children books and such books authored by Kipling and O Henry early on during my childhood. Well - not all are fortunate since we did not have even a single library in our district !! But, on the other hand, who else got that infinite liberty to climb up the hills, go fishing, catch frogs, ride buffalo and taste wild berries and get stunk with wild bees !! Now i think - those days in the wild were our library of nature. It is after all - it is you and most of the time - the physical and social environment that we grow with is more environment. With this sensible thought - Kipling said and wrote famously:
" I keep six honest servants - WHAT, WHEN, WHO, WHERE, WHY and HOW" [1]
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| Sanitation nightmare in KTM @Anuj Bhattachan |
We can also relate the above statement to "child - like" innocence with curious mind. It is only through curiosity we are able to inquire and raise brave and even funny questions. In ancient Sanskrit texts too - there is an equivalent mantra - कारण: कारण, which means "There are series of reasons for every reason !!" Succinctly - this is exactly the same principle what we strive to excel in the field of applied epidemiology or even in our day to day activities (most of the time we may fail to stick to divine principle !!). Noteworthy, however, I would say in sincerity - being a student of public health, we have been trained and taught to think through an approach of bio - medical science, where our conceptual framework and knowledge in "real" field scenario seems to be limited !! This is being realized by many public health experts like Paul Farmer along with other prominent researchers, who have seriously felt "real" gap in global health practices in recent 2013 - 2016 Ebola pandemic that created havoc in West Africa [2]. So the question arise among us: "Are we the victim of compartment syndrome?" Here I am not referring to acute surgical condition of muscle inflammation within fascia, instead it is a derogatory term for behavior or thinking pattern that is a bit traditional or confined to narrow thoughts or practice, where our usual prescription would be to "think out of the box". In other word, we could see this pattern more in the field of medicine where there is a race for super specialization so much so that we sometime say that one day there could be "left eye specialist versus right eye specialist" !! This is an increasing trend even in Nepal.
Let us touch a little here and focus ourselves on the subject matter: it is therefore, we can openly debate what it means to be victim of "super - specialization" while forgetting the common problems like cholera / typhoid / HEV outbreaks, those rampant in front of our eyes in places / communities with compromised situation in terms of socio - economic - political landscape. Any realistic public health system will definitely prioritize the existing disease burden in the community. On an explanatory note: when I say "compromised" - those who have seen the "real" public health scenario of developing countries do understand well !! So, I will not expand more on this topic here (I will keep the discussion for other posts). All these thoughts and discussion will be the reading and writing tonique for 2016, so I will write more on details in the next posts re: business of poverty related diseases from an angle of "justice as fairness" in terms of fair treatment - health as basic human right. In this 24 part series, I will share more of what I would be able to understand after reading Paul Farmer (especially Infection and Inequalities), Jeffrey D. Sachs (The End of Poverty) and Amartya Sen (The Idea of Justice and Development as Freedom) in coming posts. After all - it is the truest analysis and understanding of poverty that will help us deal with "real" public health challenges that we face and have to solve in coming years to come [3]. Here, I also urge all those national and international staffs, who perceive and claim to work for the upliftment of people in the developing countries, have to understand poverty and visit those places to understand in real sense "what is suffering as a result of poverty?", otherwise we need to question the very work ethics of developmental works in the name of poverty !! So i would ask you - "have you seen very closely what is poverty? Have you seen children die because the nearest health post is 2 hours walk uphill? Have you dealt with a situation that family does not want to vaccinate their child because they do not know or have an idea what vaccine is and for?"
In this "thinking" process and boldness to say "I do not have all the answers (in terms of knowledge and money) to solve these poverty re: problems" - I need to visit some of the slums in Kathmandu so I visited all those slums along the Bagmati and Bishnumati rivers. What I see and write here - Kathmandu is a "sanitation nightmare" (above picture). This visit has, therefore, provided me with many ideas to explore in many fronts utilizing science and its tools. Well - for now, let me leave you with these questions (as below) if you have ever visited in and out of Kathmandu valley or else if you are serious public health researcher, then you should put aside at least 2 days to visit the major slums in the valley:
- What is poverty?
- Why people get poor in terms of socio-economic status in the community?
- What is the population dynamics and its actual understanding in Kathmandu valley?
- What is the actual pattern and distribution of water borne illness in Kathmandu valley? Can we map it??
- What are those policy, strategies and action plan from government of Nepal (particularly Kathmandu municipality) to solve huge sanitation challenges in Kathmandu valley?
[1] Rudyard Kipling - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling
[2] Bio-social Approaches to the 2013 - 16 Ebola Pandemic - http://www.hhrjournal.org/2015/12/biosocial-approaches-to-the-2013-2016-ebola-pandemic/
[3] The Neglected Dimension of Global Security - A Framework for Countering Infectious Diseases Crises - http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1600236?query=TOC&
Seoul, 26 Jan 2016
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