The silent killer

It is a silent killer and it kills as many people as do HIV/AIDS. In India alone, more than 2.5 lakhs people die annually because of this but the Government is yet to come forward with a policy to tackle this dreaded illness.

Sadly, one person in twelve is affected by this in the world. Yet, many nations have neglected it and they have treated it casually despite growing numbers of people succumbing to it.

In India, more than 500 million people are affected by the illness. Strangely, neither the Government nor the State medical machinery seems to be seized of the matter. What is more worrying is that there is no movement the lines of anti-AIDS and anti-HIV programmes or campaigns to tackle this dreaded illness.

This illness is hepatitis and more and more people are falling prey to it. Though the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared a day in July as World Hepatitis Day, awareness of this illness is meagre among victims and their nonchalance appalling.

Hepatitis is irritation, swelling or deformity of the liver.     

Generally, people associate hepatitis with viral infection. What they fail to realise is that there are different varieties of infection and though they are all generally classified under hepatitis, they are not all similar or related.

The most common causes of viral hepatitis are the five unrelated hepatotropic viruses hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E. Yes, the most common cause of hepatitis is viral but the inflammation of lover can also lead to several other illness such as Yellow fever, Herpes Simplex.

Hepatitis can be acute (here, the inflammation of the liver is for  less than six months) or chronic (inflammation lasts more than six months). This can be caused by hepatitis viruses, including A, B, C, D, and E or even other lesser known viruses.

Today, a major cause for hepatitis in India is due to alcohol and drug consumption. The third leading factor is due to the presence of highly dangerous toxins in the environment.

AA little more than 500 million people in India are living with chronic viral hepatitis in India, and a majority of them are affected by B and C virus which is the common cause of liver cirrhosis and cancer. Hepatitis A and E are typically caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water and there have been reports of such cases in Bangalore.

In India, Hepatitis B, C and D generally occur due to contact with infected body fluids. Though approximately 3.5 lakhs people die annually from hepatitis C-related liver diseases, 70 per cent and above of people show no initial symptoms. By the time, it is diagnosed, it is invariably late.

Studies by medical institutions and organizations have tabulated that at least 20 million Indians carry hepatitis B virus and 8 million to ten million carry Hepatitis C virus. Shocking though, the Government does not seem to be too much bothered about these statistics.

The WHO itself has noted that there is no routine surveillance and also that deaths due to the virus are neither reported to a central registry nor recorded with a agency. Therefore, exact statistics about the deaths due to the illness is not completely accurate.

Hepatitis can be prevented but what is shocking is that the  number of  deaths due to this illness has been going up since 1990. There was 986000 deaths in 1990 and now the figure is an astounding 1.4 million. This matches the number of people killed by AIDS every year.  

More than 70 per cent f the worldwide deaths due to hepatitis occurs in the Asia Pacific region. This translates to a million people dying in this region and on average one person dying every 30 seconds.

Studies have shown that 65 per cent of people in Asia live with chronic hepatitis B and 75 per cent with hepatitis C, but a majority of these are unaware of the infection. In India, the most common reason for many hepatitis outbreaks are generally associated with fecal contamination of drinking water.

The earliest hepatitis outbreak attributed to HEV was the 1955 waterborne outbreak in Delhi which affected 29,000 people. The reason: contamination of city’s drinking water by raw sewage. India apart from Pakistan, China, Nepal and Myanmar regularly report hepatitis E outbreak. In India,  E was first recognized when it appeared in Kashmir in 1978.

Approximately, four in 100 Indians are infected with Hepatitis B and one in 100 with Hepatitis C virus. Studies have shown that 40 million people in India are infected by hepatitis B and blood donors are more prone to contact this illness. 

The Mahabanana of India

Banana is one of the most common fruits and it is practically eaten the world over. They are grown in at least 120 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent for their fibre, banana wine and in some countries as ornamental plants.

In 2013 bananas were fourth among the main world food crops after rice, wheat and maize. There is not much to distinguish banana from plantains and India is the world’s leading producer.

Of the 150 million tones, India produced 30 million and thus she shares twenty per cent of the world production. Unfortunately, India exports only a negligible percentage as  a majority of the fruits is consumed within the country itself.

Banana (Musa sp.) is the second most important fruit crop in India next to mango. It is available year around, affordable, varietal in taste, nutritive and also has medicinal and religious value. No wonder, it is a favourite among all classes of people.

It is generally believed that bananas originated in south east Asia, including India. The National Horticulture Board says bananas  accounts for 13 per cent of the total area cultivated and constitute 33 per cent of the production of fruits.

Banana production is highest in Maharashtra (3924.1 thousand tones) followed by Tamil Nadu (3543.8 thousand tonnes). This year, Tamil Nadu has overtaken Maharashtra in banana production. However, Maharashtra has the highest productivity of 65.70 metric tones /ha as against national average of 30.5 tonnes/ha. It accounts for 25 per cent of the national production. The other major banana producing States are Karnataka (1277 thousand tonnes), Gujarat (1154), Andhra Pradesh (1111), Madhya Pradesh (736) and Assam (605).       

However, Maharashtra has given a lot of importance for banana cultivation. It has also set up an exclusive cooperative for bananas and it is called MAHABANANA. The Agriculture Marketing Board of Maharashtra (MSAMB)  has established Mahabanana,  the farmers’ marketing organization in 2002 with its headquarters at Jalgaon. There are 26 co-operative societies registered under Mahabanana and each such member society has 300 to 350 small and marginal farmers. About 8000 farmers have enrolled themselves as members under the organization.

Mahabanana has initiated efforts for coordinated banana growth, cultivation, transport and export. The MSAMB has proposed to establish two modern packhouses in banana growing belt of  Jalgaon and Hingoli respectively. The pack house includes automatic banana conveyor system, pre-cooling, cold storage and  ripening chamber.

With the help of MSAMB, Mahabanana has taken up trial export of  Banana to Dubai for the last three years. As of now, just  0.05 per cent of domestic production is exported and the rest is consumed within the country mostly as a table fruit. However, domestic marketing is largely unorganized. The marketing chain from producer to customer involves four to five intermediaries, thus denying the producer and consumer a fair price besides adding to the marketing margins paid by the consumers.

Today, Jalgaon district has shown the way for the country in setting up a well organized banana industry. This has been achieved by adopting high density planting and single crop cultivation method. Besides meeting the demands for all the markets of Maharashtra state, on an average 12000 to 15000 wagon loads are transported every year to Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi . Moreover, bananas are also transported by road to Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan.

Though banana is the main fruit in international trade and the most popular one, ranking second after citrus in terms of value, main banana producing countries, such as India or Brazil, are hardly involved in it. Therefore, there is a lot of catching up to do for India in the world market.  

Bananas are imported mainly by the European Union, the United States of America and Japan, which together accounted for about 70 per cent of world total imports, while the first ten banana importing countries represented more than 86 per cent of total imports (considering the EU as a whole). Markets such as the Russian Federation , China or Easter European countries are emerging now as destinations for banana exports.

India exports bananas mainly to Middle East countries of U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar . The varieties which are in demand internationally include Grand Naine and Cavendish.

However, the low export is due to non-ideal post harvest practices, inadequate transport, lack of proper storage facilities and outdated banana handling practices .

Due to mishandling of produce about 25-40 per cent is being wasted and only 2 per cent  is processed into value added products, the remaining being used in the raw form. This often leads to sharp variation in prices.

Moreover, there is no large scale product diversification of banana and only a few industries exists for utilising the fruits for dehydration, chips making and preparing infant foods. Processing of banana for preparation of derivative products is an emerging area today since bananas can be pulped, juiced or concentrated, canned, sliced and dried. Beverages such as banana wine and banana brandy as also vinegar can be made economically.

Apart from the Vedas, the first mention of the bananas is in Buddhist texts of 600 BC. It is mentioned as a highly nutritive food. The Buddhist chronicles describe a beverage derived from banana which the monks were allowed to drink.

Travelagues of 327 BC mention that the Alexander the Great discovered the taste of banana in the valleys of India