By: Rommel K Manwong
LEAPS Academy Philippines
Fear
and uncertainty are on top of any pandemic. Currently, there are not so many
places in the world where the corona virus remains unknown. From the time it broke
up, it spread like a disastrous fire and much effort to contain it is yet to be
done. To this effect, people suddenly become religious and spiritual. But from
here, there are more or less good things that it brought us besides hope and
optimism.
P - PREPAREDNESS
- People preparedness to the unwanted situation is being tested at the utmost
point. When the government took the matter seriously by enhanced community quarantine
and lock-down, it made people challenged to think about how to respond to the socio-economic
impacts. It altered the mindset of people to innovate and create survival
schemes. Positively, it brought us into a higher level of global health
security concern, that requires global preparedness.
A - AWARENESS
– People started to understand the differences and commonalities of an
outbreak, an epidemic and a pandemic. Everyone became aware that things can get
worst at indefinite time. COVID-19 is another eye opener for us to work out on the
fundamentals of good planning and preparations.
N - NOTIFICATION
AND SURVEILLANCE – countries and organizations are taught to prioritize
technical solutions in the identification, diagnostics and speedy response even
at short notice of an outbreak. Deep realization now comes that successful
containment of pandemic relies on early recognition of human-to-human transmission,
which requires a system for surveillance – the detection, collection, analysis,
assessment and timely reporting of information pertaining to a pandemic. It
further set that the early detection of a pandemic is crucial to a faster implementation
measures to stop it.
D - DISINFECTION
AND STERILIZATION – People learn to disinfect and sterilize. With the shortage
of respirator masks as many people are considering wearing masks in public, people
realized to go back to the basics of cleanliness. Positively, people are into
the practice of enhanced personal hygiene.
E - ENHANCEMENT
– After review of existing plans, policies, and programs, many organizations
adopted to enhance their manuals involving global health security. Some
companies realized the deficiency of plans against any outbreak, others just
realized the need to create pandemic plans as part of their crisis management
initiatives.
M - MITIGATION
- Given the shortages of test kits in many countries, mitigation measures are
being realized. Positively, many countries are taking extraordinary measures.
The suspension of travels and efforts to reduce crowds are but some of these examples.
The absence of specific vaccines and an exhausted health system everywhere made
every country rely on community interventions. Although the challenge is to
make the best use of available resources and tools to mitigate the spread of
the deadly virus.
I - INVESTMENT
– elevated awareness not only to disaster preparedness and response management but
also resiliency and recovery programs has been observed. Investment to improve
pandemic preparedness is ignited to a new level. As such, countries and organizations
will take new steps for investing in pandemic research, training and capacity
building and taking side on technology-enabled or automated response management. Boosting technological capabilities is now crucial in the fight against the "unseen enemy".
C - COLLABORATION
– as compared to other natural disasters, pandemics found to be difficult to contain
geographically and that damages can be mitigated significantly through prompt
intervention and collaboration. An imperative global health security, ethics advocacy
and capacity building to deal with pandemic threats is prompted. Countries are
reminded that any pandemic is a global problem that requires global solution.
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