Misfortune never comes alone, goes the saying. After the economic melt-down the West is now in the grip of a pandemic disease, swine flu.
What an irony! It is not the travellers from the poor and underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa who are getting screened for carrying the deadly virus of some dreaded diseases, but those coming from the predominantly white-concentration countries of the world, who are undergoing this predicament. An NRI from the United States, who recently arrived in Hyderabad, is under observation as it is feared that he may be suffering from this fatal disease, which has taken a huge toll of lives in the past. Hundreds died in Mexico, where this disease struck first. Deaths have been reported from the neighbouring United States too. Till a few days ago the NRIs were the welcomed and pampered lot in this part of the world. Now they too are being looked with suspicion.
Notwithstanding so much advancement in the field of medicine diseases, whose names, the present generation has never heard of, are emerging once again. Be it the mad cow disease or bird flu or now swine flu the story does not stop here. In India too about a decade and a half ago we had plague in Surat.
But the problem with the modern world, lovingly called global village, is that it has erased the differences between endemic, epidemic and pandemic. Thanks to the extremely high mobility in the modern era within a couple of days of the outbreak of swine flu, alert was sounded in most parts of the globe. Cases were reported from places thousands of kilometres away from each other.
The European civilization, which in the last couple of centuries wiped out many old, chronic and dreaded epidemics, also has the credit of spreading several new diseases to the colonies occupied by them or to the least developed countries. For example, there is a general perception that AIDS was deliberately spread in Africa by the West. Similarly, viruses were spread among the Black, the Red Indian or aboriginal population of their own respective countries. This was the best way to exterminate these races. They were used as guinea pigs to make all sorts of experiments in the field of medicine. This has been in practice in the colonies much before the Nazis did it with Jews and Gypsies in Germany.
Now in the 21st century the diseases have come to haunt their own countries. And they themselves had to blame for it. Courtesy the emergence of the multi-national fast food companies new diseases are spreading very fast. This, notwithstanding the fact that these firms are apparently taking full care of hygiene.
The mad rush to earn fast buck by the fast food chains are, to much extent, blamed for the outbreak of these old diseases in a totally new form. For example, swine flu cases that have occurred in the past have mainly affected people who had direct contact with pigs. However, the current swine flu outbreak is different. It is caused by a new swine flu virus that has spread from one person to another, and it is infecting those who have not had any contact with pigs. So instead of Musahars rearing pigs in the rural India, the swine flu today is wreaking havoc among the people who are living in the cleanest of environment. It may be that much later these poor Indians may also face the same fate.
Over the years the entire food habit of the people has undergone a sea change. Several books have come up warning people not to be carried away by the changing lifestyle and food habit yet to little avail. Not to speak of human beings now we have changed the food habits of the animals as well. Herbivorous cattle are now, in a way, becoming carnivorous. For example, many multi-national meat firms dispose of intestines, entrails, bones and other wastes of their animals to the fodder making companies. They are mashed and mixed in a food prepared for the cattle. By eating this fodder the cattle to be slaughtered become much stronger and fleshy in no time. The meat from these firms is then supplied throughout the world.
The craze to produce big size animals, cattle, poultry, fish – and even fruit, vegetables etc. – in no time has driven the people mad. They are now made to eat less tasteful food, which sometimes have harmful impact too. So in spite of so much care about apparent hygiene the whole world is becoming the victim of the same money-minting design. However, of late realization has dawned upon many people in the West who are going for organic farming.
Thus the West has not only changed the food habit of human being, but also in the process of cattle, fish, poultry etc. We have set the things so much in the motion that we are unable to look back. So even those who have absolutely nothing to do with swine are now afraid that one day the virus of the flu may infect them. This is the beauty of the brave new world order.