Dimapur, July 28: As the media swarms the coronavirus story, lost in the shuffle are the important public health insights about how viruses work and humans respond. To help improve understanding of the outbreak’s complex dynamics, Tetso College reached out to some of the world’s most respected global health experts for their quick “reality checks” on key issues. The college invited internationally recognized, world renowned, one of the most celebrated Microbiologist Prof (Dr) Amar P Garg, Vice Chancellor of Shobhit University to speak on “Covid-19: Emergence, Outbreak and Management” in a Webinar on July 28. The talk was facilitated and moderated by Dr Aniruddha Babar, a Political Scientist and an expert in international law.
Prof Amar P Garg spoke about the origin and the emergence of the Covid-19, which came from China. He discussed in detail the clinical symptoms of COVID-19, which are bit similar to other respiratory viruses. “This outbreak is a test of solidarity — political, financial and scientific. We need to come together to fight a common enemy that does not respect borders, ensure that we have the resources necessary to bring this outbreak to an end and bring our best science to the forefront to find shared answers to shared problems. Research is an integral part of the outbreak response,” said Prof Garg.
Prof Garg believes that COVID-19 has a capacity for human-to-human transmission, the public has no hard immunity against it, a high mortality rate, which makes it suitable agents for pandemic potential and the modern transport system also helps in its rapid expansion. “Easy mode of transmission, nature of the virus, population density, environmental condition, social culture (like handshaking, etc.) are major contributors to its rapid spreading,” he said.
The speaker stressed the need for the Central Government, State governments as also district administrations to develop an ownership-based mechanism to disseminate information to the community and use it in their governance and development activity. Prof Garg believes that the government has not managed the situation of Covid-19 in a proper way.
The speaker and the participants discussed all aspects of the outbreak and ways to control it. They virtually agreed on a set of global research priorities. They also outlined mechanisms for continuing scientific interactions and collaborations beyond the meeting which will be coordinated and facilitated by WHO. (Page News Service)
