Suzuki et al. 2020, DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0860-1, CC BY 4.0
Aerobic bacteria live densely packed into tunnels of clay minerals found in this sample of solid rock, collected from 122 meters beneath the seafloor. Image B is 1,000 times greater magnification than Image A. The left side photo in each image was taken using normal light and the right side photo was taken using fluorescent light. The solid basalt rock is gray, the clay minerals are orange, and the bacterial cells are green spheres.
Newly discovered single-celled creatures living deep beneath the seafloor have given researchers clues about how they might find life on Mars. These bacteria were discovered living in tiny cracks inside volcanic rocks after researchers persisted over a decade of trial and error to find a new way to examine the rocks.
Researchers estimate that the rock cracks are home to a community of bacteria as dense as that of the human gut, about 10 billion bacterial cells per cubic centimeter (0.06 cubic inch). In contrast, the average density of bacteria living in mud sediment on the seafloor is estimated to be 100 cells per cubic centimeter.
"I am now almost over-expecting that I can find life on Mars. If not, it must be that life relies on some other process that Mars does not have, like plate tectonics," said Associate Professor Yohey Suzuki from the University of Tokyo, referring to the movement of land masses around Earth most notable for causing earthquakes. Suzuki is first author of the research paper announcing the discovery, published in Communications Biology.
Magic of clay minerals
"I thought it was a dream, seeing such rich microbial life in rocks," said Suzuki, recalling the first time he saw bacteria inside the undersea rock samples.
Undersea volcanoes spew out lava at approximately 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,200 degrees Fahrenheit), which eventually cracks as it cools down and becomes rock. The cracks are narrow, often less than 1 millimeter (0.04 inch) across. Over millions of years, those cracks fill up with clay minerals, the same clay used to make pottery. Somehow, bacteria find their way into those cracks and multiply.
"These cracks are a very friendly place for life. Clay minerals are like a magic material on Earth; if you can find clay minerals, you can almost always find microbes living in them," explained Suzuki.
The microbes identified in the cracks are aerobic bacteria, meaning they use a process similar to how human cells make energy, relying on oxygen and organic nutrients.
"Honestly, it was a very unexpected discovery. I was very lucky, because I almost gave up," said Suzuki.
Cruise for deep ocean samples
Suzuki and his colleagues discovered the bacteria in rock samples that he helped collect in late 2010 during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). IODP Expedition 329 took a team of researchers from the tropical island of Tahiti in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to Auckland, New Zealand. The research ship anchored above three locations along the route across the South Pacific Gyre and used a metal tube 5.7 kilometers long to reach the ocean floor. Then, a drill cut down 125 meters below the seafloor and pulled out core samples, each about 6.2 centimeters across. The first 75 meters beneath the seafloor were mud sediment and then researchers collected another 40 meters of solid rock.
Depending on the location, the rock samples were estimated to be 13.5 million, 33.5 million and 104 million years old. The collection sites were not near any hydrothermal vents or sub-seafloor water channels, so researchers are confident the bacteria arrived in the cracks independently rather than being forced in by a current. The rock core samples were also sterilized to prevent surface contamination using an artificial seawater wash and a quick burn, a process Suzuki compares to making aburi (flame-seared) sushi.
At that time, the standard way to find bacteria in rock samples was to chip away the outer layer of the rock, then grind the center of the rock into a powder and count cells out of that crushed rock.
"I was making loud noises with my hammer and chisel, breaking open rocks while everyone else was working quietly with their mud," he recalled.
How to slice a rock
Over the years, continuing to hope that bacteria might be present but unable to find any, Suzuki decided he needed a new way to look specifically at the cracks running through the rocks. He found inspiration in the way pathologists prepare ultrathin slices of body tissue samples to diagnose disease. Suzuki decided to coat the rocks in a special epoxy to support their natural shape so that they wouldn't crumble when he sliced off thin layers.
These thin sheets of solid rock were then washed with dye that stains DNA and placed under a microscope.
The bacteria appeared as glowing green spheres tightly packed into tunnels that glow orange, surrounded by black rock. That orange glow comes from clay mineral deposits, the "magic material" giving bacteria an attractive place to live.
Whole genome DNA analysis identified the different species of bacteria that lived in the cracks. Samples from different locations had similar, but not identical, species of bacteria. Rocks at different locations are different ages, which may affect what minerals have had time to accumulate and therefore what bacteria are most common in the cracks.
Suzuki and his colleagues speculate that the clay mineral-filled cracks concentrate the nutrients that the bacteria use as fuel. This might explain why the density of bacteria in the rock cracks is eight orders of magnitude greater than the density of bacteria living freely in mud sediment where seawater dilutes the nutrients.
From the ocean floor to Mars
The clay minerals filling cracks in deep ocean rocks are likely similar to the minerals that may be in rocks now on the surface of Mars.
"Minerals are like a fingerprint for what conditions were present when the clay formed. Neutral to slightly alkaline levels, low temperature, moderate salinity, iron-rich environment, basalt rock -- all of these conditions are shared between the deep ocean and the surface of Mars," said Suzuki.
Suzuki's research team is beginning a collaboration with NASA's Johnson Space Center to design a plan to examine rocks collected from the Martian surface by rovers. Ideas include keeping the samples locked in a titanium tube and using a CT (computed tomography) scanner, a type of 3D X-ray, to look for life inside clay mineral-filled cracks.
"This discovery of life where no one expected it in solid rock below the seafloor may be changing the game for the search for life in space," said Suzuki.
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Journal Article
Yohey Suzuki, Seiya Yamashita, Mariko Kouduka, Yutaro Ao, Hiroki Mukai, Satoshi Mitsunobu, Hiroyuki Kagi3, Steven D' Hondt, Fumio Inagaki, Yuki Morono, Tatsuhiko Hoshino, Naotaka Tomioka, Motoo Ito. Deep microbial proliferation at the basalt interface in 33.5-104 million-year-old oceanic crust. 2 April 2020. Communications Biology. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0860-1.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.
(1 of 3) Stacks of medical supplies are housed at the Jacob Javits Center that will become a temporary hospital in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in New York. A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.
A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.
By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains during a national emergency.
Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old dry-rotted masks.
“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, health and human services secretary during the Obama administration, told AP. As early as mid-January, U.S. officials could see that hospitals in China's Hubei province were overwhelmed with infected patients, with many left dependent on ventilator machines to breathe. Italy soon followed, with hospitals scrambling for doctors, beds and equipment.
HHS did not respond to questions about why federal officials waited to order medical supplies until stocks were running critically low. But President Donald Trump has asserted that the federal government should take a back seat to states when it comes to dealing with the pandemic.
Trump and his appointees have urged state and local governments, and hospitals, to buy their own masks and breathing machines, saying requests to the dwindling national stockpile should be a last resort.
“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and adviser, said at a White House briefing Thursday. “It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”
Experts in emergency preparedness and response have expressed dismay at such statements, saying the federal government must take the lead in ensuring medical supplies are available and distributed where they are needed most.
“States do not have the purchasing power of the federal government. They do not have the ability to run a deficit like the federal government. They do not have the logistical power of the federal government,” said Sebelius, who served as governor of Kansas before running the nation's health care system.
Because of the fractured federal response to COVID-19, state governors say they're now bidding against federal agencies and each other for scarce supplies, driving up prices. “You now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you,’” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, D-N.Y., said Tuesday. “It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”
For nearly a month, Trump rebuffed calls from Cuomo and others to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to order companies to increase production of ventilators and personal protective equipment. He suggested the private sector was acting sufficiently on its own.
More than three months after China revealed the first COVID-19 cases, Trump finally relented last week, saying he will order companies to ramp up production of critical supplies. By then, confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the United States had surged to the highest in the world. Now, the number of people infected in the U.S. has climbed to more than 312,000 and deaths have topped 8,500.
Trump spent January and February playing down the threat from the new virus. He derided warnings of pandemic reaching the U.S. as a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the media. As the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency on Jan. 30, Trump assured the American people that the virus was “very well under control” and he predicted “a very good ending."
His administration was so confident that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Feb. 7 that the government had airlifted nearly 18 tons of donated respirator masks, surgical masks, gowns and other medical supplies to China.
On Feb. 24, the White House sent Congress an initial $2.5 billion funding request to address the coronavirus outbreak. The next day, federal health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that the virus was spreading quickly in the U.S. and predicted that disruptions to daily life could be “severe,” including school and business closures.
Unfazed, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told lawmakers on Feb. 27 that “the immediate risk to the American public remains low.” During those crucial early weeks when the U.S. could have been tracking the spread of the disease and containing it, hardly anyone was being tested after a series of federal blunders led to a shortage of tests and testing capacity, as AP reported last month.
Without data showing how widespread the disease was, federal and state governments failed to prepare. By the middle of March, hospitals in New York, Seattle and New Orleans were reporting a surge in sick patients. Doctors and nurses took to social media to express their alarm at dwindling supplies of such basic equipment as masks and gowns.
Trump accused some Democratic governors of exaggerating the need and derided those that criticized the federal response as complainers and snakes. “I want them to be appreciative,” Trump said on March 27.
At the start of the crisis, an HHS spokeswoman said the Strategic National Stockpile had about 13 million N95 respirator masks, which filter out about 95% of all liquid or airborne particles and are critical to prevent health care workers from becoming infected. That's just a small fraction of what hospitals need to protect their workers, who normally would wear a new mask for each patient, but who now are often issued only one to last for days.
Trump during a White House briefing on March 26 claimed that he had inherited an “empty shelf” from the Obama administration, but added that "we’re really filling it up, and we fill it up rapidly.” Federal purchasing records, however, show the Trump administration delayed making big orders for additional supplies until the virus had taken root and was spreading.
HHS first announced its intent to purchase 500 million N95 masks on March 4, with plans to distribute them over the next 18 months. The following day, Congress passed an $8.3 billion coronavirus spending bill, more than three times what the White House had originally asked for.
Eight days later, on March 13, Trump declared the outbreak a national emergency. That was almost six weeks after the WHO's action. By then, thousands of U.S. schools had closed, the National Basketball Association had put its season on temporary hiatus and there were 1,700 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country.
The government had already sent tens of thousands of masks, gloves and gowns from the stockpile to Washington state, which was hit early with a coronavirus outbreak. But state officials even then said the supplies weren't enough.
Federal contracting records show that HHS had made an initial order March 12 for $4.8 million of N95 masks from 3M, the largest U.S.-based manufacturer, which had ramped up production weeks earlier in response to the pandemic. HHS followed up with a larger $173 million order on March 21, but those contracts don't require 3M to start making deliveries to the national stockpile until the end of April. That's after the White House has projected the pandemic will reach its peak.
On Thursday, Trump threatened in a Tweet to “hit 3M hard" through a Defense Production Act order, saying the company “will have a big price to pay!” He gave no specifics. HHS declined this past week to say how many N95 masks it has on hand. But as of March 31, the White House said more than 11.6 million had been distributed to state and local governments from the national stockpile — about 90% of what was available at the start of the year.
Dr. Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, testified before Congress last month that the country would need roughly 3.5 billion N-95 respirators to get through the pandemic, but the national supply chain then had just about 1% of that amount.
Greg Burel, director of the Strategic National Stockpile from 2007 until his retirement at the start of this year, said the cache was only ever intended to serve as a short-term “bridge-stock.” The stockpile was created in 1999 to prevent supply-chain disruptions for the predicted Y2K computer problems. It expanded after 9/11 to prepare for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks. Congress provided money in 2006 to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic, though Burel said much of that stock was used during the H1N1 flu outbreak three years later.
“There’s never enough money to buy everything that we want to see on those shelves,” said Burel, who stressed the stockpile uses its annual funding to prepare for a wide array of potential threats. “Most of the time, commercially available products like masks can be bought in quantity at the time of an event.”
This time, it hasn’t worked out that way. As AP reported last month, much of the world’s supply of N95 masks and other basic medical supplies is made in China, the first nation hit by COVID-19. As a result, the Chinese government required its producers to reserve N95 respirators for domestic use. China resumed exports of the precious masks only in recent days.
Experts are now worried the U.S. will also soon exhaust its supply of ventilators, which can cost upward of $12,000 each. The White House said Tuesday that it had already distributed nearly half the breathing machines in the stockpile, which at the beginning of March had 16,660; some of them dated back to the flurry of post-9/11 purchasing. An additional 2,425 were out for maintenance.
Cuomo said New York may need as many as 40,000 ventilators to deal with the outbreak that is already overwhelming hospitals there. Throughout March, governors and mayors of big cities urged Trump to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to direct private companies to ramp up production of ventilators. It wasn't until last week that Trump finally said he would use that power to order General Motors to begin manufacturing ventilators — work the company had already announced was underway.
The federal government had made an effort to prepare for a surge in the need for ventilators, but it was allowed to languish. Since 2014, HHS has paid a private company, Respironics Inc., $13.8 million to develop a cheaper, less complicated ventilator that could be bought in bulk to replenish the national stockpile. In September, HHS placed a $32.8 million order with the Dutch-owned company for 10,000 of the new model, set for delivery by 2022, federal contracts show.
Respironics' parent company, Royal Philips, said it's planning to double U.S. production of ventilators to 2,000 a week by the end of May. Steve Klink, a spokesman for Royal Philips in Amsterdam, said the company is now focused on producing its other commercial models and will deliver the first ventilators to the national stockpile by August, long after the White House projects COVID-19 cases will peak.
Trump, who pledged on March 27 that his administration would ensure that 100,000 additional ventilators would be made available “within 100 days,” said on Thursday that he'll use the Defense Production Act to order Respironics and other ventilator makers to step up production.
It's not clear that Trump's order would translate into the 100,000 new ventilators he promised. In a House Oversight and Reform Committee briefing last week, top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials hedged, saying 100,000 ventilators would be available by late June “at the earliest.”
Cuomo predicted on Friday that New York would run out within days. With coronavirus deaths in his state surging, the governor vowed to use his authority to seize ventilators, masks and protective gear from private hospitals that aren’t utilizing them.
Meanwhile, federal health authorities are lowering standards. New guidance from the Food and Drug Administration allows hospitals to use emergency ventilators typically used in ambulances and anesthesia gas machines in place of standard ventilators. The agency also said nightstand CPAP machines used to treat sleep apnea and snoring could also be used to keep coronavirus patients breathing, as a last resort.
The CDC advised health care workers last month to use homemade masks or bandanas if they run out of proper gear. Across the country, hospitals have issued urgent pleas for volunteers who know how to sew.
President Trump provided his own input, suggesting that Americans without access to factory-produced masks could cover their faces with scarves. “A scarf is highly recommended by the professionals,” Trump said during a White House briefing Wednesday. “And I think, in a certain way, depending on the fabric — I think, in a certain way, a scarf is better. It’s actually better.”
Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
Follow AP Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org
This story has been updated to correct that Trump declared a national emergency on March 13, not March 14.
A United Nations report states that the fact that women make up 70 percent of the global health workforce puts them at greater risk of infection. This is a dated photo of Catherine a nurse at Jinja referral hospital,in Uganda. Credit: Lyndal Rowlands/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 3 2020 (IPS) - As the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow, concerns are simultaneously growing about the current and long-term effects this will have on certain demographics — specifically, women, the youth, migrant workers, and many employees around the world.
At the centre of it remains one demographic that likely bear the strongest brunt of it: women.
“The fact that women make up 70 percent of the global health workforce puts them at greater risk of infection,” read part of the report. “The current crisis threatens to push back the limited gains made on gender equality and exacerbate the feminisation of poverty, vulnerability to violence, and women’s equal participation in the labour force.”
But just because women make up almost three-quarters of global healthcare professionals, does not mean they’re given the proper respect. According to a March 2019 report by the World Health Organisation, despite having such a crucial role in the public health industry, women continue to face various kinds of abuse or negligence in society, including but not limited to being attributed to a “lower status” or engaging in paid and often, unpaid roles, and being subject to gender bias and harassment.
Meanwhile, given such a large percentage of the workers are women, the requirement of child-care can hinder a woman’s ability to work during the pandemic.According to the Centre for American Progress, currently millions of healthcare workers have a child under the age of 14, who might be struggling to manage between going to work and taking care of their children.
“Because mothers’ employment is especially likely to suffer when they cannot find reliable child care, this finding suggests that millions of vital health workers currently could be struggling to secure child care, endangering their ability to work at a moment when the U.S. health care infrastructure is already spread too thin,” the report reads.
At the launch of the report, U.N. secretary general António Guterres called for policies to not only address the pandemic and contain its spread, but also that would adopt measures to address the long-lasting impact of the crisis. He called for “designing fiscal and monetary policies able to support the direct provision of resources to support workers and households, the provision of health and unemployment insurance, scaled up social protection, and support to businesses to prevent bankruptcies and massive job losses.”
Plight of migrant workers, lack of connectivity further problems
Another demographic that is deeply affected as a result of the pandemic are migrant workers, according to the report.
“Migrants account for almost 30 percent of workers in some of the most affected sectors in OECD countries,” read the report. “Massive job losses among migrant workers will have knock on effects on economies heavily dependent on remittances, such as El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Tonga, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.”
“With the outbreak of COVID-19 and measures by the GOV to mitigate the risks, country is in a national lock – down. Economic production has stopped and many seasonal Nepali migrant workers had to stop working,” Lorena Lando, Chief of Mission at IOM Nepal, told IPS.
“Thousands returned back to Nepal before the lock down, others are still in India but unable to work. Many of the migrant workers are daily wages earners, and now they no longer have an income to support their families. Even for those that return back home, job opportunities will be scarce, keeping in mind that was the first reason why they travelled abroad for work.”
“The economic impact of COVID-19 in countries such as Nepal will be much bigger than other countries, and while some actions to take are good for the short term, other will need be a socio economic recovery response in longer vision,” she added.
Beyond migrant workers, International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that the current crisis in the labor market could see between five and 25 million job losses.
“The current crisis exacerbates the feminisation of poverty, vulnerability to violence, and women’s equal participation in the labour force,” the report noted, highlighting that even amid joblessness, women will be affected disproportionately.
Furthermore, connectivity to the internet, especially at a time when all work and courses are moving online, is also of priority. The report states that currently an estimated 3.6 billion of the world’s population remain without connectivity, which means they may not have access to education, health information and telemedicine.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - More than 100 horses have died from African Horse Sickness (AHS) in Thailand, government data showed, in the Southeast Asian country’s first instance of the illness that only affects animals.
“This disease has just occurred in Thailand. We’ve never had it in the past,” director-general of the Department of Livestock Development, Sorawit Thanito, said on Thursday.
The government has quarantined sick horses to limit the spread of the disease, Sorawit said.
At least 131 horses have died across four provinces, latest government data showed.
“We have to investigate how this virus got to Thailand,” he said, adding that the government was notified in late March of AHS in the country.
Horses suffering from the illness can have fevers of over 39 Celsius, difficulty breathing and bleeding in the eyes.
There have been no reported cases of AHS in humans and it was not related to the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Sorawit said.
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) suspended Thailand’s status as an “AHS Free Country” on March 27.
AHS is endemic in the central tropical regions of Africa, from where it spreads regularly to Southern Africa and occasionally to North Africa, according to the OIE.
Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan had their AHS-free statuses suspended in 2018.
Saudi Arabia pumped more than 12 million barrels of oil on Wednesday for the first time in its history.
The Kingdom has vowed to ramp up production as an oil “price war” shakes the global energy industry following the end of a supply agreement with other producers.
Officials at Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, and the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources told Arab News that crude output on the first day of April — when the OPEC+ agreement to limit supply lapsed — was more than 12 million barrels. Some reports put it at 12.3 million.
The Kingdom’s previous record output was about 11 million barrels, achieved only briefly.
Aramco had pledged to increase its maximum sustainable capacity (MSC) — the level at which it can safely maintain long-term output — to 12.3 million in the coming months; that it has already hit this level is regarded as a measure of its operational efficiency and the Kingdom’s determination to win the battle for market share.
The company released a short video showing laden oil tankers sailing away from Saudi ports. It said it had loaded 18.8 million barrels onto 15 tankers, which would have taken about three days.
Aramco’s strategy of large output increases and significant discounts to customers — labeled a “shock and awe” play by energy experts — has transformed the oil industry. The price of crude oil plunged as demand for energy was hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Some producers, especially in the US where extraction costs are high, are facing financial disaster.
“If Saudi Arabia sustains this, it would be an unprecedented demonstration of their MSC,” said Robin Mills, chief executive of the Qamar energy consultancy. “Assuming that it is production, and not just drawing down on storage, it’s an impressively quick ramp-up.”
It was also notable that production was unaffected by any lingering issues from terrorist attacks last September on Aramco facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais, Mills said.
Despite the flood of oil onto global markets, the Brent crude global benchmark price rose by about 10 per cent toward $25 per barrel after US President Donald Trump said he thought the price was too low, and offered talks with Saudi Arabia and Russia about the global oil glut.
Shares in Saudi Aramco rose for a third consecutive day, up 1.5 percent to SR30.6.
In a study of urban-dwelling individuals, housing insecurity was linked with a higher risk of developing albuminuria, a sign of kidney disease.
Newswise — Washington, DC (March 31, 2020) — New research suggests that housing insecurity—high housing costs or unsafe living conditions that prevent self-care and threaten independence—may have negative effects on kidney health. The findings appear in an upcoming issue of Kidney360.
Previous studies have indicated that housing insecurity may contribute to delayed healthcare visits and may compromise individuals’ health. To examine its potential relationship to the risk of developing kidney disease, Tessa Novick, MD, MSW, MHS (University of Texas at Austin) and her colleagues analyzed data on black and white community-dwelling adults between the ages of 30 and 64 years from 13 neighborhoods in both low and high socioeconomic strata in Baltimore City, Maryland. The individuals were participating in the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study.
Among 1,262 participants, 405 (32%) reported housing insecurity. After a median follow-up of 3.5 years, 16% of participants experienced rapid kidney function decline and 7% developed albuminuria (excess albumin in the urine, which is a sign of kidney disease). After adjusting for demographic and clinical factors, housing insecurity was associated with a 3.2-fold higher odds of albuminuria, but it was not associated with rapid kidney function decline.
“Housing insecurity is increasing across America. Here we show that housing insecurity may be affecting the health of Americans, and it potentially increases risk for subsequent development of kidney disease,” said Dr. Novick. “Longer follow up and additional studies using larger cohorts are needed to further evaluate the impact of housing insecurity on rapid kidney function decline and reduced glomerular filtration rate.”
Study co-authors include Chiazam Omenyi, Dingfen Han, PhD, Alan B. Zonderman, PhD, Michele K. Evans, MD, and Deidra C. Crews, MD, ScM.
Disclosures: The authors reported no financial disclosures.
The article, entitled “Housing Insecurity and Risk of Adverse Kidney Outcomes,” will appear online at https://kidney360.asnjournals.org/ on March 31, 2020, doi: 10.34067/KID.0000032019
Normally bustling streets in cities across India were mostly deserted as the country observed the shutdown. Credit: UN India
NEW DELHI, Mar 27 2020 (IPS) - The exigencies of combatting the coronavirus pandemic on a war-footing — Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a nationwide stay-at-home lockdown for 21 days to break the chain of transmission — has certainly deflected attention from equally pressing challenges confronting India. The nation’s capital witnessed horrific communal violence when the US President was visiting India, triggering international outrage, including from the South. The economy also deserves attention as growth has been decelerating since 2016-17. With the virus shock, the pace of expansion will contract as the economy shuts down and slides into recession.
This trinity of a public health problem, social disharmony and economic slowdown “may not only rupture the soul of India but also diminish our global standing as an economic and democratic power”, wrote former PM Dr Manmohan Singh in The Hindu. Many countries in the South looked up to India as a vibrant democracy with its unique diversity of peoples and cultures. Not any more as many voiced criticism over the riots, which left over 53 dead, mostly Muslims, hundreds of shops, businesses and livelihoods destroyed. Around 1,300 displaced Muslims sought refuge in a prayer ground located in north-east Delhi.
After winning a historic second term in May 2019, the NDA regime has prioritised policies that appeal to its majoritarian support base. The special status of Jammu and Kashmir was scrapped last August, followed by the detention of political leaders and a communications blockade. Farooq and Omar Abdullah were recently released. There are hopes that others will be let out soon. The Delhi violence was a culmination of nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act passed in Parliament in December. This legislation seeks to provide citizenship to persecuted religious minorities, barring Muslims, from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
The CAA sparked off misgivings among the 200 million Muslims who comprise 14% of the population together with the combination of the intended National Population Register and National Citizens Register, where documents are needed to prove citizenship. This made them uneasy that they would be disenfranchised. Faced with a backlash — that includes resolutions by many states that they will not implement NPR and NCR — the government has shown signs of relenting, even stating that NCR hasn’t been brought up in the union cabinet! Even as it tackles the virus pandemic, it is however unyielding on CAA.
The reemerging religious and sectarian fault lines in India’s polity not surprisingly occasioned scathing reactions from its allies in the South. For instance, Iran has been a steadfast partner, especially since the presidency of the reformist Mohammad Khatami in the 1990s. But after the Delhi riots, Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif condemned the
“wave of organized violence against Indian Muslims”. Shortly thereafter, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei strongly stated that “The government of India should confront extremist Hindus and stop the massacre of Muslims in order to prevent India’s isolation from the world of Islam.”
Elsewhere in the South, there were protests in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, especially in Medan and Jakarta. The CAA has also left Bangladesh and Afghanistan somewhat concerned over its implication that they persecute minorities in their countries! Matters have also not improved with one of the top NDA leaders referring to the immigrant influx from Bangladesh as “termites”! India sought to allay such concerns stating that CAA is only an internal matter. PM Modi was to visit Dhaka on March 17 but that trip was just as well cancelled due to the virus problem. If it had taken place, there would have been demonstrations.
But every crisis is also an opportunity. India’s heft in the South may have diminished, but dealing with the viral contagion provided PM Modi an opening to reach out to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation after a gap of several years. Due to problems with Pakistan, this grouping receded from his priorities in favour of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. PM Modi’s video conference with SAARC leaders “is a courageous step as it brings this regional institution back into reckoning at a time of calamity” stated Professor Amita Batra of the Jawaharlal Nehru University to IPS.
Dealing with the virus outbreak is also a chance to tackle social disharmony to salvage the growth story. PM Modi must address the sense of alienation among Muslims, assuring them that NPR and NCR will be junked. As Dr Singh noted, every act of sectarian violence is a blemish on Mahatma Gandhi’s India; that social unrest only exacerbates the economic slowdown and complicates efforts to revive growth. So while the country is locked down for 21 days, the rediscovery of a sense of national resolve in fighting the virus must include all sections of the population to address the trinity of challenges. At stake is the idea of India.
(The writer is an economics and business commentator based in New Delhi
