Public health practitioners and medical professionals from across India have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to highlight “the plight of people in Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh” during the novel coronavirus scare as 4G internet remains out of bound since August 2019. The letter has demanded the restoration of the high-speed internet with immediate effect.
The letter quotes reports that health professionals are unable to or delayed in accessing the important guidelines and updates on not just the prevalence of COVID-19, but also on the latest guidelines and breakthroughs issued by the Government of India, the World Health Organisation (WHO) regarding testing and treatment for people suspected of being exposed to the virus or who are infected with the virus.
It adds: “The very slow internet speed due to 2G services veritably makes access to data, which is extremely urgent in such a situation, nearly impossible.”
The letter is endorsed by half-a-dozen medico circles and nearly seventy individual health practitioners.
It also adds that the Human Rights Council of the United Nations General Assembly, declared access to the internet to be a basic human right in 2016. “The intermittent access to internet or it’s slow speed due to 2G services in Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh will aggravate the public health crisis,” the letter states.
