;

sangeeta-bhattacharyaPublic health concerns

The KGP Chronicle (March 21, 2020)

'Herd immunity', a much-discussed issue now the world over, and 'R-naught' (R0)--both the terms came up during a discussion on public health by Prof. Sangeeta Bhattacharya of the School of Medical Science and Technology, IIT Kharagpur. Prof. Bhattacharya, a double board certified physician in the US and Associate Faculty at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, was talking on the importance of the coverage of public health during the recent Science Communication Conclave organized at IIT Kharagpur (Feb 28-29). The conclave sought to facilitate better communication between the scientific community and journalists.

During her talk at the Science Communication Conclave, Prof. Bhattacharya talked about the threat to public health from nCovid-19 and drew attention to the 'herd immunity' and 'R-naught' numbers for nCovid-19. Herd immunity is the number that describes how many people in a population need to be immune to that particular pathogen to prevent transmission. R-naught is the basic reproductive number of the pathogen and describes how contagious it can be. (Read More)