In the first week of May 2018, Kerala’s Kozhikode district was gripped by an outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus. The virus also caused a severe disease in animals such as pigs, resulting in significant economic losses for farmers. There was no treatment or vaccine available for either human beings or animals. The primary treatment for humans was supportive care. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) , the Nipah virus had a case fatality rate of 40 to 75 %. ..

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CRISIS MANAGEMENT DURING FLOODS

After the Nipah outbreak, Kerala faced massive floods for two consecutive years. In August 2018, severe floods were experienced across the state, resulting in around 500 deaths and property damage worth US $10 billion. In 2019 too, the floods took more than 120 lives in Kerala, although the damage was relatively less..

CRISIS MANAGEMENT DURING COVID-19 OUTBREAK

In the first week of January 2020, Shailaja read some news related to the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. At that time, emergency was declared in China and even the citizens of China were not alerted about the havoc the virus could create. After reading this bit of news, on January 17, 2020, Shailaja conducted a meeting with her health secretary, Rajan N. Khobragade, expecting the return of a lot of students from the state who were studying in Wuhan, China. Shailaja said, “I just thought of the possibility of Keralite youngsters who study for medicine and engineering in Wuhan getting affected with the disease and then returning to Kerala, causing its spread here. Immediately, I rang up the Kerala Health secretary and shared my concern”. ..

A ROLE MODEL

On a normal day, Shailaja started her day with a call to the health secretary at around 7 a.m. She was given a brief about all the previous night’s developments by him. Then around 6pm, she reviewed the reports submitted by the RRT team for each district at the headquarters of the National Health Mission every day. At the meeting, members of the team discussed the threats faced, prevailing anxieties, and everything that the health department should take care of. If necessary, Shailaja directly called the officer concerned during the meeting with the RRT team. The RRT team meeting usually ended by 9.30 p.m. After the meeting, Shailaja addressed a news conference to give updates about the developments of the day. ..

EXHIBITS

Exhibit I: Tweets on Shailaja