Our Correspondent
You may ridicule her but you can’t ignore her bold initiatives in leading from the front against diseases. Kerala’s Virus Warrior, as one magazine had called State’s Health Minister K.K. Shailaja, has been featured in Science magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Under the heading ‘How a communist physics teacher flattened the COVID-19 curve in southern India’ the magazine traces her work in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Kerala. Even though she had been called names in the State Assembly by the Opposition, it was her alertness that had stemmed the spread the virus in the State quite early.
The report starts, ‘When the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first statement on the spread of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, on 18 January, few local governments in India paid close attention. But K. K. Shailaja, the diminutive woman running the health ministry in the southern state of Kerala, immediately perked up her ears.
Shailaja knew many students from Kerala were studying at Wuhan University, and she understood the havoc an outbreak could cause. In 2018, during her first stint as a minister, she faced an outbreak of Nipah virus, another deadly pathogen spread from animals to people. “We knew anything could happen at any time,” she says.
By 24 January, Shailaja had called a meeting of her rapid response team, set up a control room, and mobilized surveillance teams. On 27 January, the first group of students flew back from Wuhan. Three days later, one of them tested positive for COVID-19, becoming India’s first confirmed case.
It is to her credit that only 0.36% of confirmed cases have died, a mortality rate that is among the lowest in the world and reflects both Kerala’s young population and high-quality health care. The magazine, quoting virologist Shahid Jameel, director of Ashoka University’s Trivedi School of Biosciences, says “In many ways, [Kerala] got it right. They possibly got it right the most of any Indian State.”
Much of the credit goes to Kerala’s calm and cheerful Health Minister, often called “Shailaja Teacher” because of her old job as a high school teacher. Although Kerala benefited from historical advantages including the country’s highest literacy rates and arguably its best primary health care system, experts say Shailaja’s leadership has been critical. “She listens to people, she visits hospitals privately, she talks to doctors,” says K. Srinath Reddy, director of the Public Health Foundation of India. “She comes across as a person who is blessed both in ability and humility.”
