Paro, Bhutan | 8 September 2022
To strengthen preparedness
and response capacities for public health emergencies with multidimensional
impact, a regional roadmap built on the lessons learnt from the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic is set to be rolled out in the WHO South-East Asia Region.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the impact of health emergencies is
not just limited to health. Economies and social welfare have been majorly
impacted. Globally, risks from natural and man-made hazards are also likely to
result in major and frequent health emergencies given the weakened systems that
the pandemic would leave, and the looming threats from climate change.
“The roadmap aims to protect the vulnerable and economies from the impact of
public health emergencies by strengthening national and regional health
security and health system resilience,” said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh,
Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia, at the ongoing Seventy-fifth Regional
Committee Session here.
The Regional Strategy Roadmap on Health Security and Health System Resilience
for Emergencies 2023-2027 has been formulated after detailed consultations with
Member countries and experts, and incorporates global and regional priorities
and recommendations. It seeks to boost capacities to anticipate, prevent
and manage health emergencies while maintaining essential health services
through enhanced governance and collaboration within and across countries in
the Region.
Dr Khetrapal Singh said that a Regional Health Emergency Council (RHEC)
comprising of Heads of Member countries of the WHO South-East Asia Region, is
being planned in line with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros’ proposal of Global
Health Emergency Council. It will ensure engagement and commitment of the
highest-level political leadership for preparedness and response to health
emergencies in the Region to save lives and livelihood. The detailed terms of
reference and operational modalities of the RHEC will be worked out in
consultation with the Member States in due course.
The Region is also rolling out ‘WHO South-East Asia Regional Roadmap for
Diagnostic Preparedness, Integrated Laboratory Networking and Genomic
Surveillance 2023-2027’, developed to provide Member countries a range of
policy options to develop sustainable strategies to improve their national
laboratories and prepare their laboratory systems to improve surveillance and
respond more effectively to emerging and re-emerging diseases, and other
potential public health emergencies.
These roadmaps would help Member countries develop or update their National
Action Plans on Health Security and strengthen whole-of-government and
whole-of-society approach to enable more effective public health emergency
preparedness, readiness, and response.
The Regional Strategy Roadmap on Health Security and Health System Resilience
for Emergencies seeks to strengthen health security systems to reduce risks,
detect early, prevent, and respond to public health emergencies as well as
recover from its impact. It also seeks to strengthen governance, financing and
enabling functions for emergency preparedness and surge response.
Importantly, the roadmap aims at strengthening regional alert, preparedness,
and response systems, through improved regional collaboration.
The roadmap is expected to assist countries prevent or mitigate the
multidimensional impact of emergencies on people and providers, protect the
vulnerable, while ensuring that resilient health systems are capable of rapid
recovery not just to “normalcy” but to be “built back better” post-emergency.
“A robust health system with well-developed building blocks leading to service
provision with universal coverage, is not only foundational for health security
but also critical for fulfilling the surge in service demand, continuity of
essential services during emergencies, and for the system to bounce back to
normalcy rapidly following an emergency – the three key characteristics of a
resilient health system,” said Dr Khetrapal Singh.