March 18, 2020
The World Health Organization has today called upon Member states in the South-East Asia Region to urgently scale-up aggressive measures to combat COVID-19, as confirmed cases cross 480 and the disease has claimed eight lives.
Eight of the 11 countries making up the WHO South-East Asia Region have confirmed cases of COVID-19. While Thailand has 177 confirmed cases, Indonesia has 134, India 125, Sri Lanka 19, Maldives 13, Bangladesh 5, and Nepal and Bhutan with one each. These numbers, however, are increasing quickly.
To prevent the virus from infecting more people, countries throughout the world are practicing the strategies of suspending and reducing flights, locking down towns, banning crowds and suspending conferences.
Like other countries, we need to increase surveillance at our international airports and border gates, and must implement decisions made by the central body to prevent the spread of the virus infection.
As there are no infected people in our country, we have been taking effective steps for over two months. Today, we need to make more efforts together, with the public, to be prepared to respond to the coronavirus infection, understanding that this window of opportunity can shut at any time.
Necessary preparations should be made for surveillance and imposing of self-isolation on Myanmar’s oversea migrant workers, who will return from outbreak countries, including Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. We need to increase awareness about the disease to ensure that the public understands the situation and strictly follows the guidelines of the health authorities, as these can assist in preventing the spread of the virus infection.
Also, plans should be made to ensure that people can practice hand washing with hand sanitizers at crowded locations, including the Shwedagon Pagoda and other religious buildings.
Simple public health measures are critical. Practicing hand washing, covering the face when coughing and sneezing, and practicing social distancing cannot be emphasized enough. This alone has the potential to substantially reduce transmissions.
We need to be geared to respond to the evolving situation, with the aim of stopping the spread of COVID-19 at the earliest and minimize the impact of the virus that has gripped over 150 countries in a short span of time, causing substantial losses to the health of people, societies, countries and economies.
Urgent and aggressive measures are the need of the hour. We need to act fast and now.
