The World Health Organization urged Member countries in South-East Asia Region to maintain essential health and accelerate resumption of disrupted health-care services, hit by the pandemic, as an integral part of the COVID-19 response.
Prof Jeyaraj D Pandian, WSO Vice President, participated in the WHO: SEAR Virtual meeting on Maintaining Essential Health Services and Systems during the COVID-10 Pandemic”, 29 July. The virtual meeting was attended by about 180 participants from WHO SEAR region. Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director of WHO SEAR gave the inaugural address. She stated that NCD diagnosis and treatment has been severely affected due to the pandemic and countries would find it hard to achieve the SDG Targets.
The essential services such as immunization, vaccine delivery, family planning, TB and HIV AIDS program have been disrupted as in the SEAR nations. There is an acute shortage of workforce to take care of COVID-19 patients in the region. India, Indonesia and Bangladesh are the countries facing a heavy brunt in terms of number of cases. There will be a contraction of economy by 3.6% in the SEAR countries. The innovative model of containing COVID-19 infection in Asia’s largest slum of ~1 million people in Mumbai, Dharavi was appreciated by WHO.
The number of patients with NCD including stroke attending the hospitals have shown a significant decline particularly for acute treatment like thrombolysis. In some countries like Thailand, Timor Leste and Maldives essential services have been restored and returning to normalcy. In the month of September and October there will be two regional meetings with the with the Health Minsters and country representatives to discuss the economic reforms in terms of financing and increase in health budget.
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