As the head of World Health Assembly’s executive board, India can drive the Covid-related efforts to ensure countries have wide access to drugs, diagnostics and vaccines.
India also has the largest number (17 crores) of women in reproductive age affected by anaemia, followed by China (9 crores) and Pakistan (2.5 crores).
Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil behemoth, has large interests in India. Reliance has a contract to purchase 500,000 barrels of crude per day from the firm.
Fresh details of operation conducted by IAF, Army have come out in gazette notification giving citations of those who were awarded Vir Chakra for their bravery.
Education, reservations, govt jobs are meant to bring equality and dignity. That we are a long way from that is evident in the shoe thrown at the CJI and the suicide of Haryana IPS officer. The film Homebound has a lesson too.
What we look forward from W H O experts is not their ability to conduct research or guide policies. We look for people with proven experience in foreseeing epidemics, endemics and pandemics and clearly bring out the steps needed and not the usual advisories / guidelines crap. There are two Indian citizens in key positions in the W H O now. In my opinion, with due respects to them, both do not fit into the current pandemic condition of the world. Here are the reasons.
One of them is Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist, acknowledged for her work on the use of molecular diagnostics for TB surveillance and care, to undertake large field trials of community-randomized strategies to deliver TB treatment to underserved populations. There is no proven experience in any disaster control hands on. The other is Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Health Minister of India who is also not with any such proven experience.
In this context let us recapitulate Dr Chen, 68 years the former Vice President of Taiwan, who holds a Ph D in epidemiology and human genetics from from Johns Hopkins and is an expert in viruses. At the height of the SARS outbreak which infected 671 people and killed 84 people in Taiwan, the government faced a crisis of confidence after the authorities sealed a contaminated hospital with more than 1,000 people inside who tried to kill themselves and people jumping out of windows, which was really chaotic. Chen controlled the situation and led Taiwan in its efforts to prepare for the next outbreak and established a disaster management center, increased production of protective gear and revised the infectious disease law, among other measures. His track record in the Carona period is as on May-9th-2020, Taiwan had only 440 cases and only 6 deaths as compared to the world figures of 5 million and over 300,000 deaths. Chen tried to warn the W.H.O. in late December about the potential for the virus to spread from person to person but was ignored presumably because China prevailed in this. Now Dr Chen has entered retirement, can W HO can at least now draft him?
Investigation of China and admission of Taiwan to WHO are both important for a healthy world. Since 2000, China has been the origin of various viruses which have attacked the world. So, their public health methods require scrutiny by the world body. Secondly, Taiwan is a prosperous country and has successfully combated COVID19 though a stone’s throw away from China. Keeping it out of WHO, nay, UN itself is unnatural and amounts to denial of facts.
What we look forward from W H O experts is not their ability to conduct research or guide policies. We look for people with proven experience in foreseeing epidemics, endemics and pandemics and clearly bring out the steps needed and not the usual advisories / guidelines crap. There are two Indian citizens in key positions in the W H O now. In my opinion, with due respects to them, both do not fit into the current pandemic condition of the world. Here are the reasons.
One of them is Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the Chief Scientist, acknowledged for her work on the use of molecular diagnostics for TB surveillance and care, to undertake large field trials of community-randomized strategies to deliver TB treatment to underserved populations. There is no proven experience in any disaster control hands on. The other is Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Health Minister of India who is also not with any such proven experience.
In this context let us recapitulate Dr Chen, 68 years the former Vice President of Taiwan, who holds a Ph D in epidemiology and human genetics from from Johns Hopkins and is an expert in viruses. At the height of the SARS outbreak which infected 671 people and killed 84 people in Taiwan, the government faced a crisis of confidence after the authorities sealed a contaminated hospital with more than 1,000 people inside who tried to kill themselves and people jumping out of windows, which was really chaotic. Chen controlled the situation and led Taiwan in its efforts to prepare for the next outbreak and established a disaster management center, increased production of protective gear and revised the infectious disease law, among other measures. His track record in the Carona period is as on May-9th-2020, Taiwan had only 440 cases and only 6 deaths as compared to the world figures of 5 million and over 300,000 deaths. Chen tried to warn the W.H.O. in late December about the potential for the virus to spread from person to person but was ignored presumably because China prevailed in this. Now Dr Chen has entered retirement, can W HO can at least now draft him?
hope India puts the right person and not person with MA hisory to trace Wuhan History
Investigation of China and admission of Taiwan to WHO are both important for a healthy world. Since 2000, China has been the origin of various viruses which have attacked the world. So, their public health methods require scrutiny by the world body. Secondly, Taiwan is a prosperous country and has successfully combated COVID19 though a stone’s throw away from China. Keeping it out of WHO, nay, UN itself is unnatural and amounts to denial of facts.