.IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Biomedical activities to strengthen COVID-19 case management
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for oxygen and other respiratory care supplies and equipment. A consultant in the IHM team in the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia is providing technical support to the regional Office and Member States for oxygen delivery related services. As of 15 October 2021 all available and trusted reference resources and materials related to oxygen/respiratory care equipment have been compiled; the SEARO-Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI) tool reviewed and an exhaustive database system developed; and a global nomenclature system for medical devices finalized. Read more
COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE:
HEALTH OPERATIONS AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT
ACT-Accelerator (ACT-A), was established in 2020 to accelerate development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatment and vaccines. This diagnostics pillar enabled WHO and its ACT-Accelerator partners to deliver more than 92.9 million affordable, high-quality diagnostic tests to low and low-middle income countries globally, including in the WHO SEA Region. Given the challenges in the Region, due to rising diagnostic demands, the diagnostic pillar of ACT-A, a virtual roundtable was held with Member countries in collaboration with the Regional Office.
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Technical support and assistance is being provided by WHO’s Regional Office for South-East Asia to the WHO Country Office for Timor-Leste and the Ministry of health. As part of this support, a discussion was organized to understand the current situation related to COVID-19 and to develop recommendations to enhance current laboratory testing and expanding access to testing services in the country.
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INFECTIOUS HAZARD MANAGEMENT (IHM)
Seasonal, pandemic and zoonotic influenza activities
Since 2007, annual bi-regional NIC meetings have provided an opportunity for NICs, Ministry of Health (MoH) o cials, WHO and partners to strengthen the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). They encouraged collaboration between influenza surveillance networks, policy-makers, and immunization programmes to ensure evidence-based strategies get implemented across WHO’s South-east Asia (SEA) and Western Pacific Regions (WPR). The 14th bi-regional meeting of NICs and influenza surveillance assessed how influenza related activities were affected by COVID-19. Experiences gathered from response to the pandemic offer opportunities to refine and reshape preparedness for future influenza outbreaks and pandemics.
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The bi-regional meeting of the National Influenza Centres (NIC) and influenza surveillance was followed by a meeting to review status of implementation of PIP partnership contribution (PC) supported activities in WHO’s South East Asia Region (SEAR) and Western Pacific Region (WPR). The review provides guidance to Member countries to plan PIP PC supported activities for 2022–2023 biennium based on key priorities and major shifts identified on the basis of lessons learned from the pandemic response in both regions.
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High threat pathogens
As part of WHO’s plans to launch a Global Arbovirus Initiative that will focus on Aedes-borne arboviral diseases while strengthening coordination, communication, capacity- building, research, preparedness, and response necessary to mitigate the growing risk of epidemics due to arboviral diseases. The initiative is being proposed as a collaborative e ort between the World Health Emergencies programme, the department of control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, and the Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals department. Regional consultations and a series of workshops are being planned to discuss di erent pillars of the Global Arbovirus Initiative.
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Identifying short and medium term activities to build sustainable sequencing capacities for the region
WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme (WHE), is capitalizing on efforts made in molecular epidemiology during COVID-19 pandemic response to strengthen sequencing capacities for all high threat pathogens in the short and medium term. The goal being to strengthen preparedness for and response to future outbreaks/pandemics due to high threat infectious hazards.As of October 2021, nine countries in the region have submitted genetic sequencing data for SARS-CoV-2 to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database. Read more
UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS
- 15th Steering Committee Meeting of the Emergency Management Centre for Animal Health (EMC-AH) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on Tuesday, 23 November from 13.00 to 16.00 hrs and Wednesday 24 November 2021 from 13.00 to 15.00 hrs Rome time.
- FAO-OIE-WHO Global Technical Meeting on MERS-CoV and other emerging zoonotic coronaviruses on 15–16 November 2021 from 12:00-17:00 CET.
- Webinar on “Experience sharing on creating national diagnostics networks and implementation of new tools”, a first of series of webinars, jointly organized by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and WHO-Regional Office for South-East Asia to support COVID-19 testing laboratories in Asia Pacific Region.
RESOURCES
CONTACT US
Dr. Pushpa Ranjan Wijesinghe, Programme Area Manager
