Deadly Disease

 Till  mid eighties, diseases, especially the contagious ones, meant simpler ones such as cold and cough, malarial fever, that is, those caused by climate change or vector borne diseases. With the advent of the multi-channel television, newer, comparatively unknown diseases, too, seemed to burst open.

Earlier, for example, children would mostly get tonsillitis, quite harmless by comparison, and treated with loads of ice-cream! Natty nineties onwards, early childhood did not seem to suffer from non-severe jaundice to be treated with such non-invasive techniques as drinking lots of sugarcane juice. Diseases, too, seemed to become  more technical, real specialised.

Hepatitis thus began to  haunt the disease discussions. It, moreover, had varieties, A to E. To inject or not to inject multiple vaccines from early infanthood on became a major debate. Agonising choice it would be for parents, for families, given the generational differences.

Now this deadly disease, with all its varieties, is a common household name. Often one hears of fatalities, patients wasting away to die of cirrhosis. May be, earlier, too, such diseases very much existed. People in general, may be, were not acutely aware of them. Ignorance is indeed bliss!

Now much material is available in a focussed way. Agencies such as the U.N. have health organisations as arms that spread awareness in a targetted way. With the explosion of the social media, moreover, everybody seems to know everything!

On this Hepatitis Day, here is hoping that common causes such as contaminated water, food, or contact would be more under control, especially as zoonotic epidemics, be it the COVID or its latest mutation, are rampant. Health has to be the wealth!

Pratima@  Better to build wellness (quite an industry now) than pay hefty bills, especially when payment of medical bills is quite a 'business'!!!