05 March 2020 | News
Public awareness and a united concerted effort by the public and private health care sectors is needed along with the cooperation of the citizens to contain this new novel viral epidemic
Source: Gettyimages
Apex healthcare industry body NATHEALTH has called for a unified response to arrest the cascading impact of Covid 19 and said that private sector would work collaboratively with the Government to ward off the disease before it takes Greater proportions.
Time is of essence and therefore it is imperative to diagnose and prevent the spread of the disease at the earliest, NATHEALTH emphasised in a statement issued recently.
As per WHO guidelines, Government of India has initiated a number of critical measures and build up necessary reserves based on planned contingencies for critical medical supplies and reduce cascading effect of coronavirus impact on human lives. These include potential response scenarios for containing travel related cases reported within India, local transmission of COVID, large outbreaks and the disaster response scenario of an endemic. Some of the steps include Inter-ministerial coordination, Early Detection through Points of Entries Screening, Community Surveillance through Integrated Disease Surveillance Program, Early Diagnosis, Buffer Stock and Risk communication for creating awareness among public to follow preventive public health measures.
Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, President, NATHEALTH said, “Private sector players will be happy to collaborate with the Govt to augment the diagnostics/ treatment capacity as was done in 2009 when H1N1 had started spreading incessantly.Covid19 has surfaced again in India and we do believe that we need to be as alert as possible in containing this disease without creating any panic. Though the disease is more infectious than the regular flu it seems less fatal than some of the other epidemics we have faced.”
Public awareness and a united concerted effort by the public and private health care sectors is needed along with the cooperation of the citizens to contain this new novel viral epidemic.
Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary General, NATHEALTH said, “It is high time to be prepared and agile. Healthcare sector in India stands united at this juncture to respond to the evolving scenario. We must prevent the spread through Government and citizen led public health measures while putting in place a unified preparedness strategy to treat COVID-19 across India."
On behalf of industry, NATHEALTH makes the following recommendations for consideration of Government: