Bangladesh Health Watch, a citizen's platform working to improve the country's health situation, organized an open discussion session titled “BHW Open dialogue - The second wave and Covid-19 management” virtually on April 12, 2021 (Monday) at 11:00 am.
The moderator of the event Dr. Mushtaque Chowdhury, Convener of Bangladesh Health Watch, kicked-off the dialogue session with a question: What have we learned from the first wave and what lessons from the first wave are we using in the second wave?
Dr. AM Zakir Hussain, member of Working Group of Bangladesh Health Watch and Former Director, Primary Health Care and IEDCR, DGHS, in his keynote emphasized the following key issues in the current management of the disease: Absence of epidemiologists or public health experts in the national technical committee for Covid management; Lack of coordination between bureaucrats managing the pandemic and the technical advisory committee; The Communication strategies are only on papers and its reflection in the field is not visible; Decisions taken at the national level are short-sighted, etc.
Taking part in the discussion, Dr. Mushtuque 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. He further said that the rapid spreader events such as weddings, socio-cultural, political and religious events in January and February were partly responsible for the current upsurge. Professor Liaquat Ali, chair of Pothikrit Foundation, emphasized the need to prioritise community engagement. Just 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 emphasized the need to ensure that the lockdown is implemented religiously and that it continues for at least two weeks. An inter-ministerial coordination is also of utmost importance to make the lockdown successful.
In combatting the pandemic, Dr. Mushtaque Chowdhury emphasized 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. Unfortunately, in the current Bangladesh situation, it is only the State which is playing the role, the other two are practically dormant or absent.
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