”The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the consequences of chronic under-investment in public health.
This health crisis has ignited a socio-economic crisis that has impacted billions of lives and livelihoods and undermined global stability and solidarity.
Returning to the status quo is not an option.
We don’t just need more investment in public health. We must also rethink how we value health.
The time has come for a new narrative that sees health not as a cost but as an investment that is the foundation of productive, resilient, and stable economies. ”
-Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
To start building that narrative, the WHO is setting up a new Council on the Economics of Health for All, he said, that will comprise economists and health experts and be chaired by Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of the economics of innovation and public value at the University of London, said Tedros. The Council will hold its first session online in the coming weeks.
Tedros also has praised Thailand, a developing country, for its success in handling the coronavirus pandemic and urged others to re-evaluate their healthcare approaches.
‘Thailand is an excellent example that, with a whole-of-government, whole-of-society, comprehensive approach, this virus can be contained — even without a vaccine.’
Thailand’s numbers “speak for themselves,” Thailand was the first country outside of China to report a case of COVID-19. Still, to date, it has counted fewer than 4,000 cases and just 60 fatalities, despite having a population of 70 million and one of the world’s biggest and most tightly packed cities in Bangkok.
By comparison, the U.K., with a population of about 68 million, has had 1.3 million cases and 51,396 fatalities, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
“This is not an accident,” said Tedros. It’s because, in his view, Thailand made a commitment 40 years ago to invest in its healthcare infrastructure and has built out a network of more than a million village health volunteers to act as the eyes and ears of the health system in their communities.
“Thailand’s village health volunteers are unsung heroes working to support the prevention, detection, and reporting of COVID-19,” said Daniel Kertesz, WHO representative for Thailand, referring to the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Apart from the temperature checks, the front-line health volunteers help the government collect daily health information and watch for flare-ups in infections.
Created in 1977, the Village Health Volunteers were set up as part of government efforts to help rural communities. With basic health training, the volunteers help provide rudimentary care and initial diagnoses in areas often a long way from a clinic or hospital.
“They were gatekeepers for people in the community to get to medical treatment, and this was important considering the limited resources of our health system,” said Chatichai Muksong, a historian at Srinakharinwirot University.
Thailand also learned from its experience in handling the SARS outbreak in 2003, he said.“But Thailand is also learning the lessons of the present, by working with WHO’s country office to conduct an intra-action review, to understand how it can further strengthen its public health defenses,” he said. “I urge all countries to follow Thailand’s lead.
No country can say it was well-enough prepared for COVID-19, or that it has no lessons to learn.”
The pandemic has shone a light on the consequences of “chronic underinvestment” in public health and ignited an economic crisis hurting billions of lives, he said.
Tedros reiterated his message that countries could control the pandemic even without a vaccine by following the public safety measures recommended by health experts and agencies.
“The virus itself has not changed significantly and nor have the measures needed to stop it. We know what works.
“First, know your epidemic and do the basics well. Find, isolate, test, and care for cases. Trace and quarantine their contacts. And second, engage and empower communities to protect themselves and others with the full range of measures: physical distance, avoiding crowds, ventilation, hand hygiene, and masks.”
Tedros’s comments come a day after the world suffered the most COVID-19 deaths in a single day since the start of the outbreak at 11,617, according to the Johns Hopkins data. It also set a new-case record of more than 660,000.
Sources:
– WHO Director-General’s closing remarks at the World Health Assembly – 13 November 2020 http://ow.ly/lPsv30rk61qs
-WHO head has singled out one developing country for its success in managing the coronavirus pandemic, MarketWatch http://ow.ly/p6TC30rk6bz
-Thailand’s one million health volunteers hailed as coronavirus heroes http://ow.ly/YH7b30rk6eb
