NEWS

Unpacking COVID-19 cases of Nepal with global scenarios

Unpacking COVID-19 cases of Nepal with global scenarios

As a regular learning event “benkyokai”, JUAAN organized a webinar on “COVID-19 Pandemic: An Overview” on 23rd July, 2020. The event held on zoom platform from 18:00 – 19:15 hrs was attended by 25 participants, Dr. Prabin Shrestha, a medical doctor by profession and an Active Life Member and Immediate Past Vice-President of JUAAN, shared his learnings on the aforementioned topic. The presentation was followed by a discussion session, which was moderated by Prof. Dr. Rohit Pokhrel, former President of JUAAN.
COVID-19 (Corona Virus Diseae-2019) is currently a global a health problem. Its epidemic is currently going on around the world since early January 2020. Covid Pandemic, as was declared by WHO on 11 Feb, 2020, has so far claimed lives of more than 650,000 and has affected 15,500,000 people around the world as of 23 July. USA, Brazil, India, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina etc are the countries with highest daily incidence at the moment. Even though few Asian and European countries seem to be recovering from the pandemic, USA, South Asia, Latina and South America are having a tough time with ever increasing number of total positive cases of COVID-19 and deaths because of this.

Few states of USA, namely California, Florida, Texas; India, Brazil and other few countries of Latin and South America and Africa are emerging as new epicenters of COVID-19. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are worst hit and Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka are COVID best controlled countries in south Asia. Nepal lies in between these 2 groups.
Nepal is one of the highly vulnerable countries from COVID-19 perspective as it lies in a highly pandemic zone. Moreover, several factors like its open and uncontrolled border with India, poor resources, poor health services and poor public awareness are contributing to the overall risk of COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal. However, scenario in Nepal seems satisfactory as compared to other worst hit countries of south Asia in terms of total case load, total deaths and test for COVID-19. Currently Nepal seems to be in stage 2 (Local Transmission) of epidemic on the basis of unequal distribution of cases age and sex wise. However, few signs of stage 3 (Community Transmission) evidenced by positive cases without unknown sources, have been observed. Currently the COVID pandemic in Nepal is in declining or decelerating phase since last few weeks and daily life has started taking its pace. However, considering world scenario of COVID pandemic and that in its neighbourhood countries, Nepal is still in high risk.
It has to take every step to prevent case spread from India and local transmission. Mass screening and mass quarantine, if required, should be carried out without further delay. Four Ts- Test, Track, Trace and further Test, is the key to control pandemic in Nepal.
Amid COVID control, Nepal government should facilitate economy of the country and thus life of people by promoting agriculture, local tourism, local industries etc. so that daily lively activities can be resumed.
Researchers, scientists, medical professionals etc. should continue research and study on effect of pandemic in Nepal. They should disseminate the proven facts not only to their colleagues but also to the general public promptly so that Nepal can conquer victory over pandemic soon.

The presentation is available Here