The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of investing in public health and primary healthcare, World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Wednesday. In her address to the fifteenth JRD Tata Memorial Oration from Geneva, Swaminathan highlighted the impact of the pandemic on education, violence against women, reproductive health and services. She expressed "Of the lessons that I have learned over the last nine or ten months, the most significant one is the importance of investing in public health and primary healthcare. We see examples of countries where investments in primary healthcare over the past decade or two have paid off. On the contrary, you have high-income countries where they have been overwhelmed and have not been able to put in place some of the mechanisms that have been needed," she said.
Putting emphasis on the differential impact of the pandemic on women and children, Swaminathan identified some significant factors to address the gendered impact, including social services for women employed in the informal sector, importance of sex and age disaggregated data and universal health coverage schemes such as Aayushman Bharat.
On the biggest learning from the COVID-19, Swaminathan said the pandemic taught the importance of global collaboration and solidarity, political will and leadership, and community engagement and empowerment. About the impact of COVID-19 on maternal and child mortality in low- and middle-income countries, she said the estimated coverage of essential maternal and child health interventions reduced by 10-52 percent and the prevalence of wasting is increased by 10-50 percent.
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