COVID-19: Now a pandemic

Adnan Shafi
Indeed, World Health Organization plays an essential role in the global governance of health and disease; due to its core global functions of establishing, monitoring and enforcing international norms and standards, and coordinating multiple actors toward common goals. Global health governance requires WHO leadership and effective implementation of WHO’s core global functions to ensure better effectiveness of all health actors, but achieving this global mission could be hampered by narrowing activities and budget reallocations from core global functions. The WHO Constitution identifies core functions such as epidemiological and statistical services, control and eradication of communicable disease and establishing international nomenclatures and classifications of diseases and causes of death as essential to a world health information system. As a result, the WHO has assumed a vital role in this area and been involved in technical assistance to countries in developing their own health information systems. Trends at WHO in the last several years, however, suggest a shift in priorities, evidenced also by the emergence of other entities in academia23 and the US government looking to fill a void left by WHO. The United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, has moved into global health surveillance by strengthening national public health and information systems; developing an integrated global disease detection strategy; and establishing a “code of conduct” for CDC and others on reciprocal information sharing. While these entities hold promise for more resources and expertise for global information systems, a strong WHO is still necessary, as many governments look to WHO to standardize methods, integrate information systems and ensure the reliability and validity of health statistics. Instantly, infusing a cognition about an epidemic…a disease that spreads rapidly among many people in a community at the same time.Along with this, a pandemic is an outbreak of global proportions. It happens when a novel virus emerges among humans – it causes serious illness and is easily human transmissible (spreads easily from person-to-person). The word pandemic comes from the Greek pandemic meaning “pertaining to all people”. The Greek word pan means “all” and the Greek word demos means “people”. A pandemic covers a much wider geographical area, often worldwide. A pandemic also infects many more people than an epidemic. An epidemic is specific to one city, region or country, while a pandemic goes much further than national borders. A pandemic is usually caused by a new virus strain or subtype – a virus human either have no immunity against or very little immunity. If immunity is low or non-existent the virus is much more likely to spread around the world if it becomes easily human transmissible. Pandemics generally cause much higher numbers of deaths than epidemics. The social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship caused by a pandemic are much higher than what an epidemic can cause.
Progress on WHO’s unfinished global health agenda requires emphasizing its uniquely global health functions. Undoubtedly, with hope and the grace of Allah, the novel corona virus declaration as a pandemic will be ceased momentarily.
An epidemic is when the number of people who become infected rises well beyond what is expected within a country or a part of a country. When the infection takes place in several countries at the same time it then starts turning into a pandemic. China – where the virus was first detected – has seen a total of 80,754 confirmed cases and 3,136 deaths. And Finally, WHO declares the outbreak is a pandemic. The spread of the new corona virus has reached pandemic levels, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO generally defines a pandemic as a disease that has become widespread around the world. The term has been applied to only a few diseases in history—the deadly flu, the H1N1 flu, and HIV/AIDS among them. As the virus spreads, it is disrupting business and spurring governments to act to offset its economic impact. In the valley of Kashmir, schools/colleges / universities have been closed due to this threat. Authorities in Kashmir on Saturday ordered the closure of all primary schools from March 9 in four districts, including Srinagar, in the valley until further orders. Kashmir has been put on alert to deal with any threat emerging from COVID-19 as around 200 people with a travel history to corona virus -hit countries or who had contacts with people from such countries have been identified. In conclusion, progress on WHO’s unfinished global health agenda requires emphasizing its uniquely global health functions. Undoubtedly, with hope and the grace of Allah, the novel corona virus declaration as a pandemic will be ceased momentarily.
(The author is a content writer. Views are his own, [email protected])