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WHO calls for better prevention, mitigation of health emergencies
Ready for anything: WHO South-East Asia Region director Poonam Khetrapal Singh says countries must scale up their emergency risk-management capacity, expediting efforts to mitigate potential epidemics and pandemics and ensuring that health facilities remain safe and functional during disasters
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Ready for anything: WHO South-East Asia Region director Poonam Khetrapal Singh says countries must scale up their emergency risk-management capacity, expediting efforts to mitigate potential epidemics and pandemics and ensuring that health facilities remain safe and functional during disasters. (who.int) (who.int)
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span class="inline inline-center">Ready for anything: WHO South-East Asia Region director Poonam Khetrapal Singh says countries must scale up their emergency risk-management capacity, expediting efforts to mitigate potential epidemics and pandemics and ensuring that health facilities remain safe and functional during disasters. (who.int)
The World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region has called for its member countries to scale up their emergency risk-management capacity and expedite efforts to prepare for potential epidemics and pandemics. It also urged countries to ensure that health facilities remained safe and functional during disasters.
'The region is prone to disasters. Every disaster is a reminder of the need for better risk reduction and preparedness; an essential public-health function that needs to be prioritized,' said WHO South-East Asia Region director Poonam Khetrapal Singh, speaking at the WHO regional committee meeting in Dili, Timor Leste.
Khetrapal Singh said preventing and responding to health emergencies was a global health security issue that needed every country to invest in emergency mitigation measures to enable them to effectively respond to natural disasters, infectious diseases, chemical and radiological events and other emergency with health impacts.
She said that many countries needed to accelerate efforts to comply with the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) by building their capacity to detect, report and respond to public-health emergencies.
WHO is supporting countries in the region to build the core capacity required by the IHR, such as good practice in infection prevention and control, effective surveillance systems at points of entry and laboratory bio-safety and bio-security in line with global best practices and standards.
'These have been further stepped up in the recent years in the wake of the Ebola outbreak and MERS CoV,' said a spokesperson for WHO.
Among major public health emergencies in the Region include SARS and Avian Influenza outbreaks, the 2004 tsunami, earthquakes, cyclones, floods and flash floods.
WHO says the scale of risks and needs associated with outbreaks and emergencies with health consequences is unprecedented.
Khetrapal Singh said the earthquake in Nepal demonstrated the effectiveness of emergency preparedness.
'The hospitals in Kathmandu, that had been retrofitted and its main power trained in contingency planning and mass casualty management as part of Nepal's emergency preparedness measures, withstood the earthquakes on April 25 and May 12. They continued to function and provide health care to the affected population,' she said. (ebf)(++++)
