The road ahead

The need of the hour is urgent clinical trials with different drugs and medicines and universal sharing of the data amongst global medical personnel (“India not entered stage 3 yet, admits WHO,” April 11, Gulf Today).

Over 440,000 patients have recovered from coronavirus across the world. We live in an age of digitisation and Big Data Analysis. The data of the recovered patients should be analysed by age group and previous medical records, in conjunction with the medicines used to cure them.  This will tell us which are the best set of medicines to treat patients. Unless a vaccine is found urgently, it will be difficult to deal with the possible waves of COVID-19 virus.

A human being is a social entity. How long will the 7 billion people isolate themselves? They need to work, eat and economies have to run to generate money and jobs. So, if the normal cycle to find a vaccine in 15 to 18 months, scientists from across the world must forge to lick this issue within weeks or months. This should be possible, with sharing of research efforts. COVID-19, is the number one problem facing the world. Human lives, families, companies, economies are being impacted.

The post COVID-19 period could be a very different from the world we live in. People and countries could be more wary of each other. Finding the vaccine to cure coronavirus, is the only way to restore normalcy in a traumatised world.

Rajendra Aneja — Mumbai, India