Biggest challenge in 2021 is to ensure people in all countries get access to COVID-19 vaccine:WHO

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 17 (PTI)The single biggestchallenge in 2021 would be ensuring that people in all thecountries, both rich and poor, get access to the COVID-19vaccine, World Health Organisation's Assistant DirectorGeneral Dr Peter Singer said on Wednesday.

Singer pointed out that WHO Director General Dr TedrosAdhanom Ghebreyesus had observed that the ''world is on thebrink of a moral catastrophe'' as the vaccine distribution hadso far been skewed in favour of high income countries.

He commended the role of Kerala and India in checkingthe spread of COVID-19 in the face of several difficulties andsaid ''what we saw was a test of global solidarity'' in 2020.

He said there were clear signs of the pandemicreceding as the number of recoveries had far exceeded thenumber of people still affected.

Also, the vaccination process was gaining momentum.

Overcoming the pandemic was crucial to achieving theother UN goals such as reduction of poverty, hunger,illiteracy, gender inequality and air pollution, besidesensuring availability of clean water and sanitation, he said.

According to a state government release, Singer wasaddressing a virtual international conference on 'KeralaHealth : Making the SDG A Reality', organised by the Healthand Family Welfare Department of Kerala government.

Singerexpressed hope that the situation was ''quicklycorrecting now'' following the approval of more and morevaccine candidates, including that of AstraZeneca and of SerumInstitute of India.

The Special Advisor to the WHO Director Generalsaid 2021 would turn out to be the year of ''vaccine equity.'' WHO was keen on ensuring equity ''among countries andwithin individual countries'' so that COVID-19 vaccines wereavailable to all sections of people as this was crucial toachieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), including Universal Health Coverage, he said.

Singer acknowledged that all the countries werelagging behind in the matter of SDGs even before the outbreakof Covid-19.

The pandemic had thrown the SDG goals furtheroff-track and it would require a great deal of effort to coverthe lost ground and restore and accelerate the momentum onhealth targets so that the goals could be achieved by 2030 asoriginally envisaged.

''2022 is hopefully going to be primary healthcare-based recovery, for achieving SDGs,'' he said.

As for Kerala, he said tackling the high prevalenceof hypertension and diabetes was the challenge in meetingsocial health parameters.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for mostof the deaths across the globe, he pointed out.

Former Union Health and Family Welfare SecretarySujatha Rao said Universal Health Coverage (UHC) can beachieved only through a system anchored on primary health care(PHC), which requires micro-level planning and deliberateinstitutional reform.

Rajeev Sadanandan, Former state Additional ChiefSecretary of Health and Family Welfare, said the hugeprevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases in Kerala will be areal burden for the state.

''To tackle it conventional strategies won't work.

It is time the state turned to Artificial Intelligence anddigitisation to counter the problem,'' he said.

The speakers were part of a panel discussion on theinaugural day of the five-day Kerala Health Conferencefocusing on various aspects of health system developmentcentered on the Sustainable Development Goals.PTI RRT BNBN BN