GUWAHATI: An Assam doctor’s claim that Covid-19 is a hoax has opened up the Pandora’s box.
The Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA), a forum of nationalists, urged the authorities concerned to address the issue before it creates confusion among people.
Given Dr. Satyakam Phukan’s claim, the PPFA said the medial fraternity should come forward with clarifications.
“It is shocking that when the human race is fighting the infection of novel coronavirus for more than three months with the casualties of five hundred thousand people around the world (over 16,000 in India and 11 in Assam), Dr. Phukan has come out with his claim that an annual influenza being framed as a pandemic. His views are already circulated through a number of social and mainstream media outlets of Assam,” the PPFA said in a statement.
Emphasizing on timely explanations by the authorities, including the state government, the PPFA urged that the Indian Medical Association or the Indian Medical Council should come out with specific inputs so that it cannot create misunderstanding among people and all efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 do not go waste.
Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma reacted to Dr. Phukan’s claim on Monday. He advised the doctor to take up the matter with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Let him analyse why people are dying in India every day and why 1.5 lakh people died in America and give an academic presentation to the WHO,” Sarma said.
On June 18, Dr. Phukan, who is a general surgeon, had filed an FIR online with the CBI requesting the agency to take steps to ensure that people do not suffer in the name of the “hoax”. To buttress his claim, he had shared the links of several stories pertaining to the pandemic published in the international independent media.
“It has come to my notice that the whole issue of the Corona/Covid19 virus has been reported to be a hoax in the international independent media and has been reportedly exposed by many in America and Europe, although the same has not been reported so in the corporate media,” he had written in the FIR.