When Advanced Technology Do not Salvage The Day......This Corona virus pandemic has exposed the many weaknesses of health systems of many countries. In fact,all countries for that matter, from the richest and most powerful such as USA to the poorest countries of Africa.
Common virus infections is a daily occurence in most people. Name me one person who never caught some kind of virus infections in his or her life?
But this Corona virus is a novel species of the known genus of Corona virus. In fact,during my student days in the late 70s-early 80s, I have learned about the model structure of viruses including the Corona virus. How this new corona virus become pathogenetic to humans is still an ongoing studies by scientists. But the real fatal clinical effects of this virus is very well known to clinicians by now.
The main stay of treatment of any virus infections is merely supportive, meaning; there is no specific treatment against the virus per se, but the treatments merely support the normal body functions to ride through the duration of illness.
These include;
-rehydration of the body by giving intravenous fluids
-paracetamol to reduce temperature
-painkillers for any pain
-even the controversial anti-malarial Hydrochloroquinine was used as an anti-oxidant to mitigate the abnormal production of the oxygen free radicals produced by the body in reaction to the virus
-the most resource and capital intensive support system is non other than the Ventilator machine in ICU to sustain body oxygenation
The sudden geometric rise in demands for Ventilators and ICU care during this pandemic has caught all health services systems by surprise. Even the richest countries which pride advanced technology in medical services were inundated by this sudden demand. I just turned 60 recently and on my birthday, my son reminded me that if I had caught coronavirus in Italy and required a ventilator to sustain my oxygen, I would have been dead since the cutoff age to triage for ventilator use was 60 years old.
This is the irony, ventilator is relatively low tech as compared to many high tech cancer-treating machines and also the many robotic systems. Even the ventilator-producing manufacturers could not increase the ventilator production in short space of time. The existing medical instruments manufacturing processes are not versatile enough to design and produce the standard medical devices on demand. This is due to sheer priority of resource allocation rather than lack of technical capability.
One big lesson of this pandemic crisis is the way we invest in our technology. There should be enough flexibility in medical device manufacturing through appropriate resource investment instead of merely spending on highly advanced technology which are useless in time of crisis.
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When Advanced Technology Do not Salvage The Day......
