'Bangladesh needs to engage community to fight Covid-19 surge'

Speakers in a virtual discussion said Bangladesh needs community engagement as well coordination among the authorities concerned while implementing ‘scientific solutions’ to lower the surge of coronavirus infection.

Bangladesh Health Watch, a citizen's platform, organised the discussion titled 'The second wave and Covid-19 management' on 12 April, said a news release.

AM Zakir Hussain, former director of Primary Health Care and IEDCR, DGHS, presented a keynote paper.

Regarding the current management of Covid-19 in Bangladesh, Zakir pointed out some issues including absence of epidemiologists in the national technical committee for Covid management and lack of coordination between bureaucrats managing the pandemic and the technical advisory committee.

He said that the government’s communication strategies are only on papers and its reflection in the field is not visible.

“Decisions taken at the national level are short-sighted,” he said.

Professor Liaquat Ali, chair of Pothikrit Foundation, emphasized on community engagement as he observed that the state-level interventions such as imposing lockdown would not help.

Before imposing the lockdown, the state support for the vulnerable groups must be ensured, he said.

Taking part in the discussion, Mushtuq Husain, advisor to IEDCR, said, the demand and supply of vaccines are quite in line so far. But moving forward, Bangladesh should expedite the procurement of vaccination from other sources outside Serum Institute.

Convener of BHW and moderator of the discussion, Mushtaque Chowdhury emphasized on a ‘whole of the society’ approach.

He referred to the triangular approach adopted by Thailand in which the three vertices, namely, state, science and community work together closely.