“CORONA” scored being the scariest term with the beginning of 2020. On March 11th, WHO officially declared COVID19 outbreak as a pandemic, that defines COVID19 as the outbreak with no geographic boundaries. Statistics show that COVID19 is deadlier than the previous epidemics. To date, over 4.66 million confirmed cases of COVID across the globe are detected, which resulted in over 312 thousand deaths implying a mortality-rate of around 6.7%. Countries around the globe have adopted various measures for containment of this disease and a few like NewZealand have been successful.

India being the second populous country, with a high poverty rate is highly vulnerable to the transmission of any communicable disease. In addition, pollution adds to the vulnerability to respiratory diseases. People with compromised immunity and respiratory illness are at high risk for COVID19. Thus, chances of COVID19 transmission among Indian population are quite high. To prevent the chain transmission of COVID19, a stringent lockdown was implemented since March 23rd, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has been adopting apt measures like cluster containment strategy, social distancing, active surveillance and quarantining.

Federal structure of India entitles the state and local administration to play a vital role who undoubtedly are trying their best to limit the spread of infection. In most instances, COVID-19 is transmitted through respiratory droplets, direct contact with infected, and contaminated surfaces/objects. Although coronavirus survives on environmental surfaces for a certain time, it easily gets disintegrated by chemical disinfectants. This shows that disinfectant inactivates the virus. Some states are adopting disinfection procedures such as spraying, fogging and fumigation. The term ‘disinfection’ sounds very promising but if not used incorrectly might not just be ineffective, rather may lead to many negative outcomes. Do disinfection strategies adopted by Indian state and local administration have a positive impact, neutral or negative?

To understand the process adopted by the local administration, we tried to contact municipalities in some states. Fogging has proved to be effective for prevention of vector-borne diseases but is of no use to limit COVID. For spraying, municipalities are frequently using SodiumHypochlorite (SH), aka Common bleach. It is a strong oxidizing agent, 1% solution is used as a disinfectant, but should be used with caution. As stated by MoHFW guidelines, SodiumHypochlorite should not be used for spraying outdoors (air and sunlight exposure makes outdoors less risky) including bus stops, railway platforms, parks, roads, etc.

These guidelines were not specifically communicated to all the municipal departments. This led to disinfection drives by municipalities at a great level without any standard protocol. Information collected from municipalities depicts the concentration of SH being used from 1-33%. High concentration of SH releases harmful chemicals posing significant health hazards. Thus spraying SH impacts public health. Exposure to gases released from hypochlorite may cause burning of eyes, nose, and throat; constriction and edema of the airway and lungs can occur, while chronic dermal exposure may lead to dermal irritation. Prolonged low-level exposure could lead to olfactory fatigue. In patients with reactive airway disease, coughing and sloughing of the mucosa may persist. Some patients present long-term effects such as lung and vision impairment for upto 2-3 years after acute exposure. Spraying SH is not only ineffective for managing COVID but if inhaled, is harmful to the health of people exposed. Even if spraying SH impacts a small percentage of the population, overall it would have gigantic direct and indirect negative impacts on healthcare expenditure, economy, and future GDP.

Municipalities that we contacted, were clearly vigilant and proactively adopting the disinfection procedures. This shows their intent to make efforts and respond to the situation. But, the officers mentioned that they were using trivial knowledge for disinfection practices, as they were not aware of any specific communications regarding the directives from MoHFW.

MoHFW through its website releases the guidelines for the departments and public, but there is absence of active communication channels to coordinate with state and local departments, who rely on central guidelines for protocol. Guidelines released in the form of announcements, cannot be expected to be checked by the officials regularly and on a repetitive basis. Inappropriate information transmission and communication among the departments leads to not only nonstandard practices resulting in wastage of resources, time, and money, but also poses serious health risks among the population. Also, such misinformed drives by authorities wrongly instill the idea of those drives. This leads to NGOs and volunteers stepping forward to adopt the inappropriate procedures as such.

To combat this issue, a strong, secure, and feedback-oriented interdepartmental communication system should be in place that ensures the acknowledgment of guidelines by the recipients. Under this system, any ministry/department can release the information to the selected relevant department and receive acknowledgment on their dashboard when checked by the responsible person to ensure follow-up. With a= lack of acknowledgment, appropriate measures can be taken. Same system can be used by other central and also state departments by adding other agencies that they are responsible for communicating, by triggering the information transfer. Not only during COVID, or with the health department, this communication system would be helpful in ensuring good coordination between central, state, and local departments in future for transmission of necessary information and guidelines.

Considering the current situation, pandemic not only affects the health of a country but is also responsible for affecting economic, social, and political dynamics. Amidst this pandemic, timely and calibrated use of resources and manpower play a crucial role in containment of disease and also maintaining a nationwide economy. We conclude that effective Information transfer is very essential for this, which can only be achieved by a closed-loop communication system focused on acknowledgment and feedback like the one discussed in this article to avoid unnecessary losses of lives and have efficient governance in general.