Coronavirus - The latest outbreak to hit India

According to a recent study, India will be the worst affected nation by the COVID-19, followed by the United States by the end of February 2021.

It is sad that the number of Coronavirus cases is growing rapidly in JANMA BHOOMI (motherland). India may eventually become the world's second largest country with Coronavirus cases, surpassing United States, my KARMA BHOOMI (place of work) and the current place of residence. This insatiable virus is now unstoppable, only going to spread exponentially until unless a vaccine is found. 

Most of the deadly diseases in India had been imports from outside, COVID-19 being the last to join this bandwagon. Plauge, the scourge of Europe in the Middle Ages, arrived in India on filthy Dutch ships in the 16th century. 

Even Small Pox and various Sexually transmitted Diseases (STDs) came from West, the latest being AIDS. Sadly India, one of the last countries to be infected with AIDS (the first AIDS Patient was identified in India in 1985), now has one of the highest numbers of AIDS patients, next only to China.

The famous Spanish Flu epidemics arrived in India from England in ships docked at Bombay Port in 1918, after being a scourge in America and Europe. Soon it spread like wildfire in India, spreading north towards Cow belt and Eastward to Bengal claiming millions of victim. For the first time in the history of census taking in India, the population in 1921 decreased compared to the last census taken in 1911. Flu pandemic of 1918 made a sizable contribution towards reducing the population which has gone up ever since in every census. 

Only tropical mosquito carrying diseases like Malaria and waterborne diseases a la Cholera and Typhoid were indigenous to India which killed folks en masse. Cholera did the population control in the era without condoms. The Maratha hero Shivaji, who was nicknamed as "Mountain Rat" by Aurangzeb for  successful raising a guerrilla warfare against the Mughal Emperor, succumbed to Typhoid when he was only 52. Utkalamani Gopabandhu Das, the social reformer and freedom fighter from Odisha who served people during Cholera epidemics ironically perished another waterborne disease called Typhoid.

Corona is the new Cholera, though due to more awareness and superior medical facilities the death rate due to COVID-19 is much lower. Hope a vaccine is found soon to make Corona vanish into the history of communicable diseases like Cholera and Small pox - the sooner, the better.