By: Dr. Ahmed Zafer[i] 14 April 2020
Bangladesh Police in Protecting Gears Patrolling Locked-Down Dhaka City
The Contagion, COVID 19 that we battle today in every walk of life is invisible and does not operate under standard rules of engagement or rules of warfare. No weapons are effective against this particle that tends to defy the definition of a living organism. It is like being in a gray area between living and nonliving.
Though simple in structure as a Lego toy made by a child, scientists are beginning to appreciate viruses as fundamental players in the history of life. Covid-19 falls under “obligate human intracellular parasites”, meaning its sole purpose is to inject its genetic code (RNA) inside cells of a human host and hijack the cellular functions for its own benefit to propagate into millions more. While doing so, it demolishes the host cells and is released to infect other cells or travel at wind speeds to infect other human.
The only soldiers on the side of the Human are skilled Nurses, Doctors, Scientists and health workers who are the first, last and only line of defense. From affluent countries like the USA to the poorest nations in the world, medical services are often considerably under-resourced, in comparison to say, defense forces. This is more so in Bangladesh, where politics and corruption downplays the efforts of Medical Combatants. Unlike the Liberation War of Bangladesh, these combatants who are fighting Covid-19 cannot be replaced by farmers, students, intellectuals or just anybody. What is perilous is the only line of defense is suffering casualties – several doctors and nurses have already succumbed to the virus and died in their line of duty – due to poor protection and lack of support from an incompetent administration.
From the moment Covid-19 entered our Ecosystem, breathed air from our lungs, ate and drank from our body, we were doomed. After all of man’s weapons and devices had failed, it is the tiny immune cells circulating in our blood and lymphatic streams and organs that will take the last stand. Cellular defense are programmed weapon systems, that God in His infinite wisdom endowed us with as our birth right in this Planet.
By the toll of millions of deaths over thousands of years, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet’s infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain.
In the context of Bangladesh, our best friends – the medicos – are as helpless as we are in this battle. We are on our own.
Yet we are not equipping our medicos – our frontline soldiers against the coronavirus – as well as we should have. Instead of appreciating their work, some even shun them. Recently, all the staff including the cook of hotel where government kept the on-duty doctors and nurses left the hotel leaving these medicos without food.
Should we not be joining these frontline soldiers and fighting the enemy with the same zeal and dedication as we did in our Liberation War in 1971. Why can’t we apply the same mindset and offensive that defeated the Pakistani Military? Is it because, that war involved men against men, one ideology against another? Or is it because, we Bangladeshis have lost our senses of empathy and duty?
Corona is considered by many a curse and a punishment from the Almighty God, and so do we surrender and leave it to the mercy of God and seek His divine intervention to put an end to the scourge or do we wait for a developed nation to come up with a vaccine or a drug to help us out? Is that what it entails in this era, just to sit quietly for offerings!!?
During our Liberation War, our freedom fighters snatched our country away from the jaws of the enemy with the support of 70 million ordinary Bangalis and our allies in India. Are the doctors and nurses today who are fighting a different war saving lives from an unseen enemy receiving the same support from their country men and women? I doubt not. Then if not, why not? Do we have 5th columnists – the Rajakars and Al-Badars – of the present day and context among us? Are these self-seeking agents of the enemy stopping us from supporting our frontline soldiers in their fight against the deadly virus from saving lives? Do they have more power than the loyal citizens that shed blood, sweat and tears for this country?
The Razakars and Al-Badars of this war are the black marketeers, bank looters, casino and sex traders and smuggling operators that have drained the economy and fattened their purses. In this time of dire crisis some of these leeches have even looted food meant for the poor and hijacked resources meant for the Medicos. These vermin are sabotaging our mission from behind.
Let us unite and expose these agent provocateurs and strengthen our medicos so that they do whatever they can, to the fight and save us from this deadly virus.
Surrender is not an option.
[i] Dr. Ahmed Zafer is a medical doctor currently working at the National Research Council of Canada.
Very accurate analysis !
Very well written article. I would have liked, however, if the author had suggested a preferred course of action like building a network of reliable testing centers and providing them the tools to conduct authentic tests. Likewise there needs to be a proportionate distribution of our ventilators, trained respiratory nurses and adequately trained doctors in pulmonary specialities. Given the problems of our communication infrastructure, such resources must not be concentrated in Dhaka only.
Nothing useful