COVID and the Bhil Adivasis

 The second wave of COVID 19 spread in India due to the variant B.1.617 has wreaked havoc across the country. Not only is thise new variant more infectious it is also more fatal. Once it affects the lungs in the second stage then it becomes difficult for the patient to recover despite getting the best of medical treatment. The problem is compounded by the fact that in addition to oxygen, ventilators become necessary along with anti viral drugs such as Remdesivir. The huge increase in the number of cases from the second week of April meant that all these were in short supply and many patients were unable to get proper treatment and died. Even when patients did get these treatments, such was the severity of the disease that a number of them died. Thus, unlike in the first wave, even proper treatment was not able to save patients even if they were prepared to pay and so even upper and middle class patients have died and this has created a considerable furore.

Under the circumstances one would have thought that once the virus spread to rural areas there would be much greater fatalities given that none of the crucial aids - oxygen, anti-viral drugs, ventilators and qualified doctors and hospitals, were available in rural areas.  The ratio of qualified doctors to the population in India is very low and most of them are located in urban areas. So rural people have to rely on quacks who give them intravenous drips of saline and antibiotics for treatment. 

  Eventually the virus made its way into the rural areas of western Madhya Pradesh where the Bhil Adivasis reside. Given their low nutritional levels one would have expected them to be particularly vulnerable to this dangerous virus. However, while quite a few have fallen ill with fever and cough very few in the villages have died. Since there are no testing facilities for COVID 19 in rural areas and even in small towns, one does not know whether this fever and cough are due to the virus or not. However, from the fact that the incidence of fever and cough is much more than what normally happens at this time of the year, one can infer that this morbidity is due to COVID 19. Yet as usual the Adivasis have visited the quacks and been administered intravenous drips of saline and antibiotics and gradually they have recovered. In most villages there are no deaths whatsoever. As opposed to this from among those Adivasis who are in government employment as teachers, engineers and the like who stay in the towns and cities some have died after being infected by the virus. 

The matter of lesser fatalities among Indians from COVID 19 as compared to other countries like the USA or UK had come up for discussion earlier also in the first wave of the pandemic. It was said then that there is something special among Indians that has kept the death rate down and the Government had even boasted in February that it had controlled the disease very well as compared to the developed countries.  However, in the second wave the death rate in the general population has been very high and this has put paid to this theory that there is something special in the Indian population. 

However, the Bhil Adivasis in the rural areas, especially those who are dependent on farming, have had the better of the virus this time round also, relying on the irrational medicine practiced by quacks. This makes one wonder whether the Bhils have something special in them that despite being mal nourished they are able to counter the virus!!

The bigger problem like last time has been the loss of earnings. Most Bhils have to depend on migratory labour to supplement their meagre farm incomes which are not enough to sustain them. Normally they work in nearby towns and cities during the summer months to accumulate money to finance the sowing operations at the start of the Kharif season and obviate the need to borrow from traders at usurious rates to buy seeds and other material. However, due to the lockdown that has not been possible this year and so they will have to go to the moneylenders for loans.