Clicky
National, Front Page

Govt seeks WHO advice for travel measures


Published : 12 Mar 2020 09:53 PM | Updated : 05 Sep 2020 06:05 PM

Bangladesh on Thursday sought World Health Organisation’s (WHO) advice for travel measures as increasing number of countries are imposing entry restrictions due to new coronavirus spread.

The WHO on Wednesday declared the virus pandemic, asking countries to take ‘urgent and aggressive’ action to stop ‘unnecessary’ sufferings and deaths. India suspended all visas, except a few categories such as diplomatic and employment, till April 15.

“We don’t have any plan to impose travel restrictions. Still I wrote to the WHO Dhaka office seeking their opinion in this regard,” director of the government’s disease monitoring arm, IEDCR, Prof Meerjady Sabrina Flora told Bangladesh Post.

“We follow WHO for everything from management to control measures. We don’t have many cases. There is no new transmission at the local level. We have strengthened our airport screening system. So we don’t have any plan to impose travel restrictions,” she said. “But we are waiting for the WHO’s reply”.

She, however, said the spread of the disease in European countries has become a new source of anxiety for them. “We are monitoring the situation as it spreads to France. Spain and the UK, outside Italy,” she said.

Bangladesh earlier on March 8 confirmed the first three cases – two returned from Italy and the other was a family member of them.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque, while receiving five thermal scanners for airports form the Summit Group on Thursday, urged Bangladeshi citizens living in different countries not to return home right now unless emergency.
“If anyone returns home, they must be quarantined,” he said, adding that, “We’re searching new cases through our different surveillance sites in hospitals.”

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives.
In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled. China’s Wuhan city was the place of emerging this new virus.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked countries to take “a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach, built around a comprehensive strategy to prevent infections, save lives and minimize impact.”
He summarised that in four key areas. “First, prepare and be ready. Second, detect, protect and treat. Third, reduce transmission. Fourth, innovate and learn.”

“I remind all countries that we are calling on you to activate and scale up your emergency response mechanisms; communicate with your people about the risks and how they can protect themselves – this is everybody’s business; find, isolate, test and treat every case and trace every contact; ready your hospitals; protect and train your health workers. And let’s all look out for each other, because we need each other,” he said while announcing the pandemic.

WHO urged people wash hands with soap, cover cough and sneezing and keep at least 1 meter distance from the sick person to keep the virus at bay. Schools have been asked to promote the health and hygiene messages among the students.