In the wake of the rapid spread of Coronavirus infections across countries including South Asia, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation on Sunday woke up from hibernation as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a conference of the leaders of South Asian nations to discuss coordination and strategy to combat the advance of the disease.
PM Modi’s call for collective action came on a day India announced it was closing 18 of 37 border check points to ensure people from neighbouring countries were properly screened before they came into India. However, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka welcomed Modi’s offer given that all South Asian countries have reported SARS-COV2 infection cases.
We hope SAARC collective wisdom
and efforts will help us devise
robust strategy against COVID-19
PM Modi announced that India had set up an Integrated Disease Surveillance Portal to better trace possible virus carriers and the people they contacted. We could share this Disease Surveillance software with SAARC partners, and training on using this.
As members of this region, we must come together in such critical times. Smaller economies are hit harder, so we must coordinate. We hope SAARC collective wisdom and efforts will help us devise robust strategy against COVID-19.
At various levels, governments and people are trying their best to combat it. South Asia, which is home to a significant number of the global population should leave no stone unturned to ensure our people are healthy. We hope that following the video conference, leadership of SAARC nations will endeavour to chalk out a strong strategy to fight coronavirus in no time.
What is needed at this hour is to remain calm and composed, while standing against misinformation. We need clearer instructions and directives on the part of the government which every member of the government needs to be aware of and carry out effectively and efficiently. To a large extent, we can be grateful that medical workers are working tirelessly to contain the virus in the nation. Furthermore, there is hope that a vaccine may be on the horizon.
