Editor's Desk

The theme of the last issue of 2020 was digital health. The COVID-19 pandemic had begun just as we were finalizing that issue. It seemed pertinent at that time to have public health as the theme in a future issue. This was because, in India as well as in other parts of the world, the inadequacies of public health systems became clear during the pandemic. As we often hear, one should prepare for war in the times of peace. Public health is somewhat like that. When it is done well, it would prevent disease occurrence and spread. It would weigh various factors that influence the health of the population and work on them before anything bad happens. All that was not enough even in countries with robust public health infrastructure when something as bad as SARS-CoV-2 hit in all its variant forms. At some point, it appeared as if we would run out of Greek alphabet to name the mutations. But the world survived albeit with a heavy loss. But all was not bad because vaccines arrived, awareness increased among people, hygiene improved, and the governments responded. Public health has had many other triumphs before. We read about some of them in this issue. I wish there were more articles. What we have learnt is that those who work on public health are so busy that they have little time left on their hands. Despite being extremely tied up, Prof. Sudhir Krishna, the guest editor of this issue, agreed for this task. When it became necessary, Dr. Ramakrishna Prasad was ushered in to help. I thank them both and all the authors for contributing their time and effort during a difficult period. We get a glimpse of what public health is by reading the articles in this issue. There is a lot more. All that hopefully prepares us for the next threat. Let us hope that it will not be as damaging as what the world went through over the past two years. With enough investment in public health, we stay prepared for any calamities. Prevention, after all, is better than cure.