World should learn how to deal with COVID-19 pandemic from Pakistan: WHO

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Pakistan is among the countries from whom the international community should learn how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Former Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza said it was the recognition of Pakistan’s effort at the international level.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been quoted as saying that Pakistan deployed the infrastructure built up over many years for polio to combat Covid-19. "Community health workers who have been trained to go door-to-door vaccinating children for polio have been utilised for surveillance, contact tracing and care,” he said.

Residents attend a funeral in Karachi. File.

"There are many other examples, including Cambodia, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Senegal, Spain and Vietnam. Many of these countries have done well because they learned lessons from previous outbreaks of SARS, MERS, measles, polio, Ebola, flu and other diseases. That’s why it’s vital that we all learn lessons this pandemic is teaching us.”

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Dr Mirza in a tweet stated: "Pakistan included among seven countries by WHO Director General- countries that the world can learn from about how to fight future pandemics. Great honour for the people of Pakistan.”

He said it was the recognition of the national effort internationally. "It proves that if we want to do something we can do it. Moreover, the WHO DG spoke about the importance of the public health system. It is talked about ‘building back better (BBB)’ and I believe time has come to build back,” he said.

A health worker insists residents to use hand sanitizers. File.

BBB is an approach to post-disaster recovery that reduces vulnerability to future disasters and builds community resilience to address physical, social, environmental, and economic vulnerabilities and shocks.

Ministry of National Health Services spokesperson Sajid Shah said it was collective efforts from the platform of National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) due to which not only Pakistan proved all international estimates regarding the number of cases wrong but also minimised the cases. He said efforts were being made to further push back the virus.