QF webinar stresses need for united global Covid-19 fight
Healthcare experts highlighted the need for global collaboration and individual efforts to fight the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) at a special online edition of Qatar Foundation’s Education City Speaker Series yesterday.
Titled ‘Flattening the Curve: Global Responses to Covid-19’ and held in collaboration with the World Innovation Summit for Health, the event saw the experts appealing to world leaders to set aside the differences and work for humanity.
According to Dr David Nabarro, World Health Organisation’s (WHO) special envoy on Covid-19, the world must be “one family” in the fight against coronavirus and its leaders “will not be forgiven” if they fail to work together to defeat it.
In the wake of the US announcing to halt funding for WHO, Nabarro said, “This is a global pandemic and we must not spend time looking backwards – that can be done later when history is written. We need to work in solidarity, at a community level, and within and between countries. Without solidarity, we will not win. We plead with everyone to look forward, focus on the epic struggle that is taking place right now and leave the recriminations until later.”
“The current global situation is the new normal we have to get used to. If we argue about it, the virus will find its way between us and catch us out, and we will be asking ourselves why we didn’t move more quickly, develop a unified, strategic approach, and implement it Every single person in the world is a public health worker right now. We look at global leaders straight in the eye and say: the future of our world is in your hands, you must work together, and you will not be forgiven if you don’t,” he explained.
Dr Ahmed al-Mandhari, WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean region said governments must “rebuild, re-establish, redevelop and rethink how they are running healthcare systems”, saying that, over the years, many countries have overlooked the need to invest in “basic health measures that have saved many lives”.
“At a community level, Covid-19 will definitely change people’s habits and behaviours,” he said. “It will make people more conscious of their own health and that of others, and I hope it will bring governments, different sectors, partners, and donors together to face a pandemic that we have never experienced in the past.”
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said that the continent’s Covid-19 challenges range from testing capacity outside capital cities and the “weakness” of its healthcare systems, to a shortage of critical supplies and “the fact that while governments are doing a lot of work in informing people what they need to do to protect themselves, in some settings people do not have access to running water.”
Dr Salih Ali al-Marri, Assistant Minister for Health Affairs at the Ministry of Public Health – told the panel that Qatar would be “happy to participate in international vaccine trials” – said: “Working together is the key to success,” he stressed.
The event, moderated by journalist and documentary-maker Mishal Husain, also heard from Rossella Miccio, president of Emergency NGO, whose teams are working with Italy’s efforts to combat Covid-19. “What we need is a centralised decisionmaking process,” she said. “If information, policies, and messages are not clear, people become confused and gaps between different social groups can become deeper.”
The vital role of nurses in the global fight against Covid-19 was emphasised by Dr HsiuHung Wang, president of the Taiwan Nurses Association, who said: “Their efforts should be recognised broadly and at the highest level of society, and in the long run, we need to provide them with mental and social support that is specifically designed for them.”
Dr Jerome Kim, director-general of the International Vaccine Institute in South Korea, explained that despite the global clamour for a vaccine, issuing an unapproved vaccine would be difficult “because you don’t know if it will actually work”, and said, “It needs to be a vaccine that will work around the world, and that is why everyone needs to participate in clinical trials – it must work for everyone.
“We really need to do research urgently and ethically if we want to develop a vaccine and reduce the suffering and death from Covid-19. The emphasis has to be on a global effort, and not just sharing data. As long as we have unchecked epidemics, all of us are at risk of exposure. Unless we get together and control this pandemic together, it will continue to threaten countries around the world.”