Why Nepal will not suffer from the Covid-19 Pandemic like the west?
Nepal is a tiny country compared to its giant neighbors regarding any matters. There are very less cases of COVID-19 in Nepal. Till now, 21st of April as I am writing this blog post the underlying reasons why Nepal likely to suffer less from the global pandemic COVID-19, we got 31 cases so far. Those cases are also imported cases from outsiders and they found very less transmission even to the nearest of the person who found positive for COVID-19. There are certain factors which are playing vital role which helps for less spreading of the Corona. The patients with the cases we got at the beginning are already discharged from the hospital. We have lot of traditional practices that saves us and our practices are different than the westerners. The major reasons are listed below.
Traditional habits of eating with hands
Many Nepalese households outside the big cities people don’t have spoon and forks and that is very common for families not having that. Even if they have spoon and forks they don’t use them. They eat with their hands all the time. Before eating they have a culture of washing their hands and even face. Traditionally many families even they were changing the dress to go to kitchens and eat. This culture put us on cleaning our hands frequently. The cooking is done with the firewood; the ash is used for cleaning if they don’t get soap. Even the red clay is utilized for all cleansing purpose. After defecation also they use only water with soap for cleaning and they clean their hands again too.
Pre-exposure to unhygienic condition
Majority of the Nepalese even who are living in big cities right now are exposed to unhygienic condition back in the village because these people lived and grown up in the village between and among the domestic animals. They have been played in the mud, swamps and dust made them more resistant towards the any microorganism. We handled cow dungs, buffalo dungs and other type of animal excreta and used them as manure in our farmland. As handling all these thing made us stronger against any type of external organism.
Spices that boost our immune system
The basic spice in the Nepalese kitchen is the cumin, coriander, turmeric, garlic, ginger and onions. Besides these basic spices many Nepalese kitchen have fenugreek, black pepper, cardamom, cloves, chilies and many others. All these spices help us to boost our immune system. With boosted immune system we can handle the microorganism quiet well. Lots of households still use traditional medication for simple illnesses like flues. If somebody suffers from cold and flu they make a drink out of turmeric, ginger, lemon and honey, which is also an immune system booster.
Culture of cooking fresh foods every meal
We have to cook foods for every meal. We don’t use frozen foods that much. Even the meat we use fresh. In western societies they have a culture once they cook, cook for a week and at the time of eating they just warm them but we do cook for every meal, a fresh food. We buy fresh vegetables every day and we consume very less meat. The research showed the virus originated from see food market in Wuhan.
Coming summer with high temperature
They claim the virus will not survive in relatively high temperature. As we are in northern hemisphere and temperature rises every day it is less likely that virus spread fast.
Pre-exposure to deadly disease
We have suffered from Malaria, Chicken pox, Small pox, Tuberculosis, Leprosy, Dengue and many other deadly diseases in the past. With pre-exposures to these deadly diseases made us stronger and help us handle well with COVID-19.
BCG Vaccine, the game changer in the scenario
BCG vaccine is the mandatory vaccine for all children and they get vaccinated soon after their birth. Researches proved that who got this vaccine would suffer less from COVID-19. As almost everybody got this vaccine in Nepal this would help to cope against the virus quiet well.
Lock Down already
Nepal is already in lock down for more than four weeks. They probably are going to continue as a preventive measure. As everybody knows there are no infrastructures in the hospitals and if lot of people flood to the hospital there will be severe crisis so public are obeying the lock down order by government. Public are now already aware of social distancing and self-isolation and its importance to mitigate the hazards of COVID-19.
No mass transport and nightlife
Unlike western countries Nepal does not have any means of mass transport like metro, rails in the city that will lower down the spread rate drastically. The transport here is a motorbike and small microbus so spreading is limited to insignificant population. We have no night clubs and discos besides many Nepalese people cannot afford to eat outside so that helps to keep the number much lower and spread very slow.
Prompt healthcare and environmental factors
To avoid pandemic, whoever suspected are kept in self-isolation until the test is done. If the result of the test shows negative with Corona than they can go for home quarantine. Hospitals are prepared to handle limited number of people but till now they are quiet prompt. As most of the Nepalese live in solitary houses with enough exposure to sunshine and even most of the offices not furnished with air conditioning they are quiet prone to Pandemic.
As the tourism and travel trade stopped totally we are waiting to welcome to our valuable clients in this mysterious and beautiful land. Hope this will be over soon and people start moving again. The people from the land of Buddha and Everest eagerly waiting to see the world will go normal emotionally, financially and socially. You will be greatly appreciated if you share this to people who are interested to visit this marvelous country after pandemic is over.
