South East Asia Needs to Urgently Scale-Up Fight Against COVID19

The World Health Organization has called on member states in South East Asia to urgently scale-up aggressive measures to combat COVID19, as confirmed cases cross 480, and the disease claims eight lives.

“The situation is evolving rapidly. We need to immediately scale up all efforts to prevent the virus from infecting more people,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region.

Eight of the 11 countries of WHO South East Asia Region have confirmed cases of COVID19. While Thailand has 177 confirmed cases, Indonesia 134, India 125, Sri Lanka 19, Maldives 13, Bangladesh 5, Nepal and Bhutan one each, the numbers are increasing quickly.

“More clusters of virus transmission are being confirmed. While this is an indication of an alert and effective surveillance, it also puts the spotlight on the need for more aggressive and whole of society efforts to prevent further spread of COVID19. We clearly need to do more, and urgently,” the Regional Director said. “Looking at the numbers, some countries are clearly heading towards community transmission of COVID19.”

Of critical importance are continued efforts to detect, test, treat, isolate and trace contacts.

“Simple public health measures are critical. Practicing proper and adequate hand hygiene, covering your cough and sneeze, and practicing social distancing cannot be emphasized enough,” Dr Singh said. “This alone has the potential to substantially reduce transmission.”

However, if community transmission does set in, countries will need to gear their responses to slow down transmission, as well as end outbreaks. Emergency mechanisms would then need to be further scaled up, and a network of health facilities and hospitals for triage and surge would need to be activated to avoid overcrowding.

Self-initiated isolation by people with mild diseases would continue to be the most important community intervention to reduce the burden on health system and reduce virus transmission.

Testing of all suspected cases, symptomatic contacts of probable and confirmed cases, would still be needed.

“We need to be geared to respond to the evolving situation with the aim to stop transmission of COVID19 at the earliest to minimize the impact of the virus that has gripped over 150 countries in a short span of time, causing substantial loss to health of people, societies, countries and economies. Urgent and aggressive measures are the need of the hour. We need to act now,” added Dr Singh.

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