Health Minister K K Shailaja has received another international honour for COVID resistance. ‘Science’, the mouthpiece of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) published an article praising the minister two days ago.
The article was published with the title ‘India’s COVID-19 teacher’. It explains that the minister’s timely intervention helped control the disease transmission and also reduced the death toll considerably.
Kerala started taking precautions as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak was reported in Wuhan of China and a warning was issued on January 18 about the chances of the disease to be a global pandemic. As there are many expats, migrant labourers and urban dwellers in Kerala, there was a huge possibility of epidemic transmission.
However, the government was able to control the disease transmission close to zero during the initial months through contact tracing, quarantine, tests focussing on priority groups. Besides, the death rate of COVID patients was reduced to 0.36 percent which is the lowest rate in the global level, the article pointed out.
‘Science’ was started by a journalist in 1880 in New York with the financial assistance of Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. This weekly is one of the most respected science journals in the world with over 5 lakh readers.
