By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission China had reported a cluster of cases and the novel coronavirus COVID-19 was eventually identified on December 31, 2019. It soon swept across the world, pushing health systems to the brink, necessitating lockdowns, with great loss of life and livelihoods. The year 2020 passed revealing the failure of the world to learn lessons from earlier epidemics. The year 2021 began with great hope from emergence of vaccines which were rolled out in several countries including India. Despite that more devastating second wave struck within months revealing unpreparedness, faulty vaccine rollout policies, and taking the disease lightly. Now, after two years of the outbreak, Omicron variant is spreading like wildfire, at such a rate that the world has not seen earlier, reminding us that we are woefully unprepared with all our faulty policies and inappropriate behaviour despite warnings. We must learn lessons now and prepare for the next epidemic in 2022.
The world has just observed the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness and the message on the occasion from Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres outlined several drawbacks that were cause of concern. “Failure to learn the lessons” was the top concern followed by lack of “global solidarity” which was badly needed to prevent future health crises. It has been proved that “an outbreak anywhere is a potential pandemic everywhere”. Therefore we need to ensure that everyone has access to healthcare and vaccines not only the rich. If we continue like this new variants and new epidemics are imminent to emerge, and Guterres has rightly maintained that “COVID-19 would not be the last pandemic for humanity.”
Towards the end of 2020, there was miraculous development of effective vaccines which were rolled out by the beginning of the year 2021. Despite that the virus continued to spread and mutate throughout the year. Omicron is the latest variant after Delta, which was labelled variant of concern on November 26, and it was only in the mid-December the WHO chief has warned that “we underestimate this virus at our peril”.
UN and WHO were lamenting vaccine nationalism by January. Covax drive by WHO was launched in March for developing countries. However, by July, with emergence of Delta variant, a grim milestone of four million deaths was attributed to this virus, which became five million by November 2021. WHO chief has pinned the blame squarely on a lack of equitable vaccine production and distribution.
According to the United Nations, as the new Omicron variant continue to spread like wildfire, 70 per cent of COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed to the world’s ten largest economies, and the poorest countries have received just 0.8 per cent which the organization called “not only unjust” but also a threat to the entire planet. It would not be out of place to recall the warning by the WHO Chief Tedros Ahanom Ghebreyesus in the beginning of 2021 regarding vaccine nationalism and hoarding. We have been witnessing both the whole year.
The world took almost a year to decide that there must be a “new global accord” to handle the future pandemics. At the end of November, a special session of the World Health Assembly (WHA), only second in the history, was held aiming to develop a new global accord on pandemic prevention and response. It was a “cause for celebration, and cause for hope”, but the WHO Chief said, “there are still differences of opinion about what a new accord could or should contain.”
To end even the present cycle of outbreak, the UN has underscored that at least 70 per cent of the population in every country must be inoculated, which the organizations vaccine strategy aims to achieve by mid-2022. However, it would require at least 11 billion vaccine doses, which is possible only when sufficient resources are put into distribution.
COVID-19 continued to directly affect education, mental health, and reproductive services. Many other health services were disrupted, such as cancer diagnosis and treatment, inoculation of children for other diseases, tuberculosis care, AIDS services etc. UN agencies believe that in South Asia alone, 239,000 child and maternal deaths occurred last year. UNICEF had even revealed in March that children were living a “devastating and distorted new normal”. Children in developing countries have been particularly affected with rates of child poverty rising around 15 per cent. In August, UNICEF issued recommendation for safe return to classrooms and schools started opening.
In May, the WHO convened a meeting and the creation of an international hub for pandemic control was announced, which aimed at ensuring better preparedness and transparency in the fight against likely future global health threats. In July, the G20 group had concluded that global health security was dangerously underfunded. The G20 panel’s co-chair noted that COVID-19 was not a one-off disaster, and that the funding shortfall meant that “we are consequently vulnerable to a prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, with repeated waves affecting all countries, and we are also vulnerable to future pandemics”.
It is only one aspect of tackling the crisis. There are other things that every country need to ensure, such as scaling-up investments in better monitoring, early detection and rapid response plans. “It means strengthening primary health care at the local level to prevent collapse … ensuring equitable access to lifesaving interventions, like vaccines for all people and … achieving Universal Health Coverage” the UN Secretary General has maintained. (IPA Service)
End Of An Era For Southeast Asia’s Oil And Gas Sector 