Published 16:13 IST, July 4th 2020
COVID-19: WHO lauds India's efforts; urges adequate criteria be followed for managing data
Asserting that India should also focus on data management originating from the pandemic, WHO lauded the Indian government for its efforts in tackling COVID-19
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Asserting that India should also focus on data management originating from the pandemic, World Health Organisation (WHO) lauded the Indian government for its efforts in tackling COVID-19. According to WHO, India's big challenge is "population", its geographic diversity, heterogeneity.
The world nodal health agency further extolled the Indian government's strong political leadership to focus on important things like developing diagnostics and being able to scale that up, also being very systematic about the lockdown measures and unlocking in an organised manner.
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Speaking to ANI, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at WHO highlighted India's achievement, stating that, India is doing more than 200 thousand tests a day and is now developing testing kits.
"The Government of India took extremely serious steps from the beginning and put in place certain measures in January itself based on the WHO recommendations. Today, India is doing more than 200 thousand tests a day. Now, India is developing testing kits. It is a big achievement for India that in the last couple of months as India has become self-sufficient in testing kits and being able to scale up."
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"However, I would like to say that there should be a focus on data. By that, I mean that we need to have a systematic approach to looking at the data," added Dr Swaminathan.
She said that the moment people start focusing on the total number of cases and the total number of deaths -- it gives only part of the story."There needs to be some kind of national guidelines on how you report data. Otherwise, you cannot compare. Everybody is reporting things in different ways," she said citing an example that WHO has recommended certain criteria that the government can use to assess where the epidemic is.
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Meanwhile, With 22,771 people testing positive for coronavirus in a single day, the highest so far, India's COVID-19 tally climbed to 6,48,315 on Saturday, while the death toll rose to 18,655 with 442 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data. With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 3,94,226 and one patient has migrated. There are 2,35,433 active cases of coronavirus presently in the country, the updated data at 8 am showed.
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WHO Urges Countries to 'wake Up' And 'take Control'
The World Health Organization on July 3 urged countries to “wake up” to the coronavirus pandemic realities on the ground as the situation continues to spiral out of hand with millions infected, and to “take control”. At a briefing hosted by the UN correspondent's association in Geneva, WHO warned the world about the lackadaisical approach to the health crisis, hinting at reopening and non-adherence of protective masks use in many countries that were now witnessing a surge in cases.
16:13 IST, July 4th 2020