PUBLIC HEALTH SURVEILLANCE KEY, OFFICIAL SAYS

ZURICH Countries must return to “basic principles” of public health surveillance if they are to bring the coronavirus outbreak under control, the World Health Organization’s top emergency health expert said on Friday.

The UN agency, which said it is facing a $1.8 billion funding deficit for its effort to tackle COVID-19, issued the call for more surveillance as many countries including the United States, Switzerland, Mexico and Germany have turned their efforts toward reopening economies battered by the pandemic.

Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’S health emergencies programme, said all nations should focus on the fundamentals of the global coronavirus fight: scouting potential new infections, hunting them down, confirming them and then separating those afflicted, to save others from the disease.