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[INSIGHT] Pandemic preparedness: Upscaling tech, skills for stronger health system
Some countries are facing outbreaks of other infectious diseases amid COVID-19.
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![[INSIGHT] Pandemic preparedness: Upscaling tech, skills for stronger health system](https://img.jakpost.net/c/2020/03/23/2020_03_23_90332_1584934594._large.jpg)
A medical worker in full protective clothing conducts a simulation of handling COVID-19 patients, at Pertamina Plaju Hospital Palembang, South Sumatra, on Thursday, March 12, 2020. Pertamina Plaju Hospital conducts socialization and simulation to ensure its readiness in handling patients with suspected suspect coronavirus before being referred to a referral hospital. (Antara/Feny Selly)
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t has been eight months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. To date, the coronavirus has infected almost 56 million and killed more than 1.34 million people in 217 countries and territories worldwide. Millions more are lying in hospital beds, fighting the disease.
The figures are very disturbing, and the world must brace for many more cases and deaths before global mass vaccination is feasible.
In the Asia-Pacific, governments are grappling with the heavy toll of the severe acute respiratory infection. India has recorded more than 8.9 million cases and 131,000 deaths, overtaking Brazil as the second-worst affected country in the world. Indonesia has the highest tally in Southeast Asia with 474,455 cases and 15,393 deaths as of Tuesday.
Several countries have succeeded in keeping the pandemic in check, but what has compounded the health crisis in most countries is the need to revive their economies. Regulatory authorities around the world are facing growing public pressure to ease lockdowns and to lift physical restrictions so businesses can reopen and people can move around freely, even travel.
Meanwhile, some countries are facing outbreaks of other infectious diseases amid COVID-19.
Health and biosecurity expert Rob Grenfell from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) pointed to the recent avian influenza outbreak in his home state of Victoria. While it did not infect people, the disease infected 30 percent of the state’s poultry population. But the greatest concern was that this latest outbreak could eventually cause the avian flu virus to mutate into a highly pathogenic strain.
“We know we will get other influenza pandemics in some distant future. We should be ready for that. We will have some changes in coronavirus, we need to be ready for that,” Grenfell said on Nov. 12 at “The inevitability of pandemics: Is Asia Pacific prepared?”, a virtual press event held as part of the Dia:gram Media Forum series on infectious diseases.
