D8 Members Solidarity Against Corona Pandemic

ISC Covid-19 Visualizer outcast among D8 member countries
16 April 2020 | 00:00 Code : 1323 News Important News
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April 16th, 2020. Islamic World Science Citation Center, Shiraz, Iran

The D-8 Health and Social Protection Programme Office in Abuja (D-8 HSP) and London Chatham House jointly organized first virtual roundtable of health professionals of the D-8 Member States on 16th of April, 2020 in order to discuss the COVID-19 Pandemic. The meeting was attended by professionals from the Ministries of health and Foreign Affairs of the Member States as well as International Organizations such as Chatham House, Malaysian Technology Development Cooperation (MTDC) and the Islamic World Science Citation Center of Iran (ISC).

The prime objective of the virtual roundtable is to come-up with a mechanism for cooperation in order to lessen the hardship caused by the pandemic through knowledge and resources sharing as well as understanding of country specific needs. During the meeting the D-8 Member States reviewed the country’s contexts and impact of the pandemic and shared some ideas and innovative solutions implemented by them in line with global best practices.

The Secretary General of the D-8, Ambassador Dato’ Ku Jaafar Ku Shaari, while addressing the meeting, stressed that that the D-8 Member States have to use the D-8 Health and Social Protection Programme window to support one another in these trying times. He also emphasized the need to improve partnerships, experience sharing and mutual support and assistance in order to mitigate the consequential adversities of the pandemic.

In continue he stated: “The world is facing a pandemic unlike any in recent history, with huge disruptions to livelihood, economy and health systems. The attendant effect of the pandemic, according to the IMF, will lead to recession far deeper and more devastating than that of 2008. Loss of income worldwide, the aggregate of which is in the region of 3.4 trillion dollars, will affect billions of people across the world.  There is no gainsaying that this impact would be felt in our Member States. This clearly brings to the fore the nexus between health security and economy. It is therefore imperative that D-8 as an economic bloc use this sectoral track to support one another in order to mitigate the consequential adversities of the pandemic as well as facilitate partnerships, experience sharing and mutual support and assistance.”

He also mentioned:” Our message is simple. We are at war and the world faces a common enemy, hence our response must match the magnitude and uniqueness of the crisis. Thankfully, our call for global partnership is yielding results, I am happy that a renowned global think tank, the United Kingdom based Chatham house is partnering with the D-8 to support Member States to ward off the negative effects of this pandemic and support the long term Universal Health Coverage strengthening going forward.”

The last but not the least part of his statement was about ISC’s role in designing and producing the COVID-19 visualizer: “In a bid to facilitate the endeavors of this working group, the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), has designed and launched the COVID-19 Visualizer Map for the benefit of the D-8 Member States as a useful resource to guide policy making, case management and interventions in support of national responses. In addition, we are also in advanced discussion with a global leading research institution to urgently manufacture quality ventilators for the D-8 Member States at significant reduced cost for the use of our national health systems; you therefore need to avail us of your country requirements.”

The D-8 Commissioners from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan also participated in the meeting and praised the efforts of the Secretary-General and D-8 HSP office for timely organizing the roundtable. They also highlighted the importance of utilizing the D-8 HSP platform to strengthen cooperation in the health sector among the Member States. Furthermore, the Commissioners urged the Secretariat to look into the economic effect of the pandemic and propose a mechanism to mitigate the adversities in this regard.

The virtual session was moderated by the Programme Director of the D-8 HSP, Dr. Ado Muhammad and Director, Global Health Programme Executive Director, Centre for Universal Health of Chatham House Mr. Robert Yates and called for solidarity and cooperation in the areas of commodities, technology, equipment, pharmaceuticals and other needed items.

Prof Dr. David Heymann, Epidemiologist and public Health Researcher, gave a comprehensive briefing to the participants on global best health practices and security and highlighted the importance of implementation of same in order to curb the pandemic.In the same vein, professionals from international organizations discussed the importance of multi-lateral public-private partnerships and joint evaluation of research and innovation in order to tackle the pandemic.

The meeting also evaluated the consequential adversities of the COVID-19 pandemic from the economic point of view. ISC COVID-19 Visualizer is a system launched by the Islamic World Science Citation Database (ISC) and provides instant information about coronavirus disease 2019, including statistics and information about patients, statistical reports and scientific articles.

The mentioned database includes statistics on the state of the disease distribution per country, and the latest scientific articles are updated daily. This system publishes an extensive collection of the latest scientific articles and pre-prints on the new 2019 coronavirus disease, along with the full text of these articles.

As projected by the IMF, the pandemic is expected to lead to global recession far deeper and more devastating than that of 2008 economic meltdown. It will also result in loss of income worldwide, the aggregate of which is in the region of 3.4 trillion USD, which will affect billions of people across the world. Hence, the compelling need for cooperation and solidarity in order to secure lives of citizens and economies of the Member States.

The meeting also decided to establish a separate working group to commence assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the national economies of the Member States. When established, the working group will disaggregate data on GDP, Employment and poverty and suggest effective ways for the D-8 Member States to quickly get out of the woods

The Member States pointed out the need to continue with a series of discussions and follow-up of the decision made at the roundtable. Furthermore, the D-8 HSP shared the draft schedule of the next round-table meetings and applauded the spirit of the Member States and international organizations and their valuable contributions to the discussions.

As a result of the productive discussions at the virtual meeting, two working groups emerged: Implementation Monitoring Group- to provide weekly updates and recommendations for a data driven programme that comprises of Egypt, Indonesia, Iran and Nigeria; and the Resource Mobilization Group- to articulate strategies and recommendations for domestic resourcing by countries that is to be done by Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey.

The D-8 further plans to host a meeting of the D-8 Ministers of Health on the sidelines of the 2020 World Health Assembly.

For on-the-spot updates on the COVID-19 Pandemic in the D-8 Member States please click on https://maps.isc.gov.ir/covid19/#/d8, the special COVID-19 visualizer map launched by the ISC.

 

tags: D8 Video Conference D8 Organization


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