Recently, two people at work picked up typhoid, another one malaria and then another one chicken pox ok not such an uncommon disease but his whole family contracted it and he actually came to work and the pox started popping up and then he thought it might be a good idea to leave. Huh?!? In the paper, I read that that there is an increase in typhoid and other gastrointestinal diseases in the summer time. First of all, isn't there a vaccine for typhoid, why are so many people still getting it? Suchitra was mentionning that someone she knows also developed Scarlet Fever, isn't it eradicated? I sometimes forget that I live in a hot tropical country.
So now just as I thought we built up some immunity and we could have some street food, I guess I will have to wait some time longer.
2 comments:
I have noticed the tendency for folks at work in our Pune office to ignore severely contagious diseases and come to work - there are a few really new variants of dengue and others called chicken gunia and monkey gunia and what not.
Stay safe..
Mythili,
You should talk to my brother - he works for a Diagnostics company and usually has a rant-on-hand about the stupidity of the human race :-D :-D
But here is his gyaan on vaccines for tropical diseases: my comments in parentheses.
The Typhoid vaccine is relatively new (for India) and doesn't work very well, so obviously traslates, in people's minds as not being worth it...besides, avoiding Typhoid is usually only a matter of avoiding unclean food and water - (many folks stop eating out during the monsoons for this reason, and boil all drinking water.)
As for malaria, the side effects of the anti-malaria meds are far worse than the disease itself. (I've had malaria - it's not a huge deal, no worse than a bad case of the flu.)
Scarlet fever - nope not eradicated at all - the Rubella vaccine is also considered a nice-to-have, not a necessary one, since scarlet fever has relatively mild symptoms in adults. Most kids do get it as part of their usual vaccination cycles.
(As for chicken pox, there are plenty of people who consider it a rite of passage and prefer to get the disease than a vaccination for it, especially as the vaccine has been found recently to not be as effective as thought previously, requiring a booster shot at age 11 (new TX requirements)).
That said, of course, no one should come in to work knowing they are ill, but I've always known people at work who think the company would collapse if they didn't drag themselves in :-) :-)
M
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