Call to improve healthcare in fight against diseases

The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) 2016 concluded yesterday with the global healthcare fraternity discussing some of the major challenges in the sector as well as exploring possibilities to overcome them.
The closing ceremony was attended by HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, along with a number of other dignitaries.
The summit was attended by about 1,500 global healthcare leaders including a large number of ministers and senior government officials from more than 100 countries.
The two-day summit, held at the Qatar National Convention Centre, featured the launch of a number of new research papers on several topics of healthcare analysing the issues and suggesting recommendations.
At a panel discussion on infectious diseases, some of the leading experts highlighted how the entire world gets affected when some epidemic breaks out at some part of the world due to globalisation.
Prof Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer, England, said that the world was affected severely by three major epidemic diseases in the recent years.
“Ebola, Zika and Mers affected a large number of people in several countries across the world. Ebola, the severest of them,  resulted in 11,310 deaths while Zika has been spread over 75 countries. Mers has affected 18 countries and resulted in the death of 36 people.”
She highlighted that such diseases generally originate from animals and insects.
“Animals and insets act as reservoirs of such epidemic diseases. Such epidemics took place both in developed and developing countries. From 1980, a total of 38 types of such infectious diseases had emerged,” she said.
According to the official, sanitation, hygiene and infection prevention and control are necessary to overcome such diseases. “Vaccines are necessary to fight such diseases and effective treatment is very vital in this regard. Moreover, new treatments will help in saving a large number of lives,” she added.
George Alleyene, director Emeritus, Pan American Health Organisation, Barbados, said there was a need for a global architecture in healthcare and its proper utilisation.
“Global systems should address the global problems and the regional bodies of such systems are capable of handling the cases effectively,” he explained.
Dr Seth Berkley, CEO, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations, said that vaccines are most cost effective in fighting infectious diseases. “We need new and effective vaccines.There should also be a market for such vaccines,” he highlighted.