Health

WHO tasks South-East Asia region on aggressive actions to combat increasing Covid-19 cases

By Hassan Zaggi

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on Member states in South-East Asia Region to urgently scale-up aggressive measures to combat COVID-19. This is even as confirmed cases cross 480, and the disease claims eight lives.

In a statement, the world health body said: “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 COVID-19. While Thailand has 177 confirmed cases, Indonesia 134, India 125, Sri Lanka 19, Maldives 13, Bangladesh 5, Nepal and Bhutan one each. These numbers are increasing quickly.

The Regional Director further said: “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 COVID-19. We clearly need to do more, and urgently.”

He reiterated that looking at the numbers, some countries are clearly heading towards community transmission of COVID-19, adding, this should best be prevented.

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

Dr Khetrapal Singh stressed that simple public health measures are critical. Practicing hand hygiene, covering your cough and sneeze, and practicing social distancing cannot be emphasized enough,

“This alone has the potential to substantially reduce transmission.”

However, if community transmission does set in, countries would need to gear their responses to slow down transmission, as well as end outbreaks.

“We need to be geared to respond to the evolving situation with the aim to stop transmission of COVID-19 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,” the Regional Director said.

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