People bypassing screening are traitors: Dr Naresh Trehan

Coming weeks will be decisive in India's fight against the novel coronavirus: whether the cases would spike or the disease would be contained successfully. But there have been cases when infected people have bypassed the system set for identifying the confirmed cases. How big a threat can they pose?

New Delhi, March 17 Coming weeks will be decisive in India's fight against the novel coronavirus: whether the cases would spike or the disease would be contained successfully. But there have been cases when infected people have bypassed the system set for identifying the confirmed cases. How big a threat can they pose?

Doctor Naresh Trehan, Chairman, CII-National Council on Healthcare and Founder of Medanta hospital, told that such people are doing a great disservice to the nation. He even went to the extent of calling such people "traitors".

"It is extremely irresponsible of people who are bypassing the system, laid down to identify suspected and confirmed cases. Such individuals are traitors in reality and doing a disservice to the community."

He said people in habit of bypassing rules think it is a good attitude, but there is nothing heroic in it. "They are not only posing a threat to the community but also their own families and their own health in the first place," he said.

Breaking the myth that cow urine could be a cure to the novel coronavirus as widely shared on social media, Trehan said: "People have been consuming 'Gomutra' for a long time to boost their immunity. But honestly, I have not across any such study. I don't know if cow urine is used for developing any drug against such diseases. I do not recommend such things."

Trehan said though the country is moving in the direction of containing the disease, coming weeks are extremely crucial for India as far as the COVID-19 spread is concerned. "The government is doing all that it can to contain the disease. However, it will be great if the government sets up hospitals and quarantine as designated COVID-19 centres. These could be set up in nonfunctional hospitals or buildings instead of usual hospitals. It will save other people from the infection," he said, adding "such an experiment has been done in Mumbai".

Trehan said the country was going to have more cases in the time to come as India was heading towards stage three of COVID-19 spread.

"Stage one is when people only with travel history from the affected countries contract the disease, stage two is when they infect health workers and caretakers, but in stage three, it is spread in the community. Government should try to contain the disease at a war footing before the situation reaches this stage. It is the biggest fear right now," he said.

He told that Medanta Hospital is ready with facilities as per the government request.

(Sfoorti Mishra can be contacted on sfoorti.m@.in)

( With inputs from IANS )