THE World Health Organisation (WHO) strongly suggests that countries make more use of contract tracing in the global fight against the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).
“The single most important intervention for breaking chains of transmission is not necessarily high-tech, and can be carried out by a broad range of professionals. It is tracing and quarantining contacts,” says WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

He says that while stay-at-home measures and lockdowns have succeeded in slowing the spread of the virus, the worse is yet to come, as the pandemic is speeding up, despite the progress that has been made in some countries.

Just recently, Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr. Carissa Etienne was quoted as saying that Latin and Central America may very well have to grapple with the fallout occasioned by the pandemic over the next two years.

According to Dr. Tedros, “The critical question that all countries will face in the coming months is how to live with this virus… We will need even greater stores of resilience, patience, humility and generosity in the months ahead.”

To effectively stop the virus in its tracks, the WHO proposes that governments fight it on five fronts:
1: By way of community empowerment through knowledge and resources;
2: transmission suppression by training health workers and doing effective surveillance and contact tracing;
3: saving lives through early detection and providing the critically ill with dexamethasone treatment and oxygen;
4: accelerating research that can lead to finding a successful vaccine; and
5: Fostering national unity and global solidarity.

Globally, the WHO said on Monday, COVID-19 cases stand at over ten million just one day before the six-month anniversary of the virus, with the virus being responsible for approximately 500,000 reported deaths so far.

This led Dr. Ghebreyesus Monday to call on governments and citizens the world over to put all forms of politics aside, as division among the people of a country only lead to hindrance and all must focus on beating the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as one people through national unity.

“The pandemic has brought out the best and the worst of humanity. All over the world, we have seen heart-warming acts of resilience… But we have also seen concerning signs of stigma, misinformation and the politicisation of the pandemic,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said, adding:

“Even if we belong to different political parties, the citizens of any country are the same. So, whether we belong to the right or left, or we are the centre; what matters at the end of the day is that we do good for the people. Even one life is important.” (DPI)