By Aarju Laghari-
Dead bodies of suspected Covid victims have been found floating in the Ganga river in Bihar’s Buxar and Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh’s Hamirpur reflect the pandemic taking a heavy toll in rural areas.
The scarcity of testing facilities in the cities has been blamed for the lack of accurate numbers of infected people suffering with Covid-19.
Local residents have claimed that rising costs associated with funerals were leaving some families with no option but to put the bodies of loved ones who had died from coronavirus directly into the river.
A second wave of the virus is ravaging parts of India, with deaths rising significantly in recent weeks. Most of the country’s crematoriums have run out of spaces.
India has recorded more than 22.6 million coronavirus cases and 246,116 Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Sources from India told The Eye Of Media.Com that the the fact dead bodies have been dumped in rivers points to the stigma of both people running out of resources to do cremations, and the limited capacity of hospitals in the country.
India’s public health system is far from ideal with a limited number of competent doctors and nurses available to serve in rural areas, where over 60% of the population reside.
Basic requirements of the Covid illness like oxygen and essential drugs is inaccessible for many people.
Medics have called for emergency measures to mobilise nursing students in their final years, and those preparing for various examinations like DNB, including doctors with foreign degrees, etc. Where policy changes are being made to this end, they need to be implemented fast and well.
Greater emergency assistance is needed from international agencies like the United Nations, if domestic capacity is unable to scale up to the needs of the hour.
Troubling
The death rate from Covid-19 in India is troubling and may even be very much understated since there are many thousands of people who cannot even get to hospital for treatment because of the full capacity of patients currently under treatment.
The stigma of dying from Covid-19 in India is also not publicised, but plays a large role in the decisions of families to dump their bodies in rivers and hide the fact they cannot afford to cremate them.
The situation is dire, and the panic is escalating in many parts of India. Family pride is a big part of Indian tradition and citizens prefer to be considered as being above the pandemic. Poverty obviously plays a role in many of the deaths.
Families that struggle to afford basic necessities are more prone to diseases, which are in turn exacerbated by the infection of Covid-19..
Struggling families have been calling to their relatives abroad for financial help to boost their standard of living in order to reduce their chances of catching the deadly virus.