Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Coronaviruses and Beyond

by Sonia Shah

But as comfortable as these medical tourists may be, once under the knife their internal tissues will be exposed to New Delhi’s unique microbial environment, and they bring any microbes they gain during their procedures back home. People who undergo surgeries are especially vulnerable to infectious pathogens. Surgeons’ knives breach the protective layer of skin that separates the interior of the body from the exterior environment, allowing the army of microbes that live on the surface of the skin, in the air above the bed, and on the surgical instruments and other objects that pass over the open wound to slip in. Even the most elaborate sterilization practices often fail to stop them. Those that make their way into the body are likely to flourish, since the surgery itself, not to mention the conditions that often precede it, depress patients’ immune systems.