KATHMANDU, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Health professionals of eight SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) member states held a video conference on Thursday to share experiences and information on COVID-19 emergency medical responses.
With the sharing of practices, capacities and preparedness mechanism to fight against the virus, the experts also agreed to make a common public domain saarc-COIN.org by April 13 as part of setting up integrated disease surveillance.
The Nepali team was lead by Mahendra Shrestha, director general at Department of Health under the Ministry of Health and Population.
"Each country shared about their emergency response system and level of preparedness to combat the spread of COVID-19. We informed about the preparedness of our hospitals, mobilization of local governments across the country and plans to expand our lab facilities," Shrestha told Xinhua.
According to Shrestha, the Nepali side inquired about the lacking of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other emergency supplies to treat the patients, while other SAARC countries also shared about the insufficiency of PPEs.
"We also inquired about the role and mobilization process of private hospitals in fighting this epidemic," Shrestha added.
The two-hour video conference also dwelt over surveillance and contact tracing, quarantine and isolation facilities and treatment mechanism on controlling epidemics within the South Asian region.
Nepal is the first country among the SAARC nations to detect the case of novel coronavirus. After two months of reporting the first case, Nepal has recorded two cases this week.
On March 15, SAARC leaders had held a similar video conference on combating COVID-19, demonstrating the common resolve of member states to fight the challenge together.
The SAARC nations have also created a COVID-19 Emergency Fund based on voluntary contributions from the member states to fight an emerging COVID-19 outbreak in South Asia.
The SAARC groups Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
