By Thomas Scaria
Bengaluru, Feb 15, 2020: The corona virus epidemics that broke in Wuhan province of China and later spread to other countries affected the third Global Public Health Conference in Bengaluru, southern India.
Several overseas participants had to cancel the trip in the last minute, Isanka Gamage, the managing director of The International Institute for Knowledge Management (TIIKM), the event’s organizer, told Matters India.
However, the February 13-14 conference went on as scheduled with 30 participants from 8 countries attending, he added.
The Annamalai University, India and University of Malaya, Malaysia were the co-hosts of the Conference.
Gamage said they expected nearly 100 participants from more than 20 countries but many scholars from South East Asia could not come because of travel restrictions. However, they joined the conference online, he added.
The death toll from the virus epidemic, renamed as Covid 19 by the world Health Organization, has killed more than 1,500 people, mostly in China as of February 14.
The Bengaluru conference, titled “Globeheal 2020,” evaluated efforts of various countries in preventing the epidemics and expressed solidarity with the families of those killed by the epidemics.
“Enhancing Global Health development towards sustainable healthy communities” was the theme of the conference which specially discussed on prevention of communicable and non communicable diseases.
K. Ravikumar, senior regional director for Health and Family Welfare who gave a keynote address, stressed on community awareness and participation as the key indicators for success in community medicine. He said several diseases like dengue, malaria, etc could not be fully eradicated as community remain resistant or ignorant to prevention measures.
V. Murugesan, the vice chancellor of Annamalai University, said epidemics such as coronavirus happening anywhere in the world would spread to other parts of the globe because of the increased connectivity. “At this crucial time, it is indispensable to focus on global health issues, identify creative solutions, and provide better health services to the community across the world,” he said in his welcome message.
“Today, there is much to do at the local and global levels to address issues relating to health and well being,” he pointed out, particularly mentioning on women and children’s health.
The conference addressed topics such as challenges in community response, human rights based approach in global health, change in global disease patterns, efficacy of de-addiction camps among alcohol users, and world pharmacy services.