Dr Vijay Kumar Sah
Taiwan and South Korea tookan exemplary action and triumphed over the ongoing pandemic despite beingat high risk. South Korea has a population of 51.47 million and that of Taiwanis 23.78 million. Similarly, Nepal has around 30 million population, which isnot a big number compared to South Korea. There is no doubt that Nepal’s healthsystem and resources are not enough to battle against the pandemic but if it caneven do 50% of what Taiwan and South Korea did, the curve will certainly be flattened and the panic in the general public will be turned into confidence tofight back. So, how did these countries contain the virus?
Taiwan took early and very strict action against the virus and contained it. Taiwan possesses an exemplary model of pandemic response team that has been recognized by the World Health Organization. Taiwan started screening people at their port of entry as soon as they got information about the coronavirus and that was from January 5. Even though Taiwan is just 80 miles away from the epicenter of the pandemic, which is Wuhan, from where thousands of people travel to Taiwan and vice versa. Still, Taiwan could control the spread and contained it. They started testing every individual and directed everyone to follow the protocol very strictly. Taiwan increased the production of face masks from 2 million per day to 10 million. This shows how actively and seriously they took the situation and moved ahead of the virus. They started notifying people to stay home through various apps and shipped face masks to every household and directed every individual to wear them. They even penalized people who refused to stay in quarantine. All these methods were the part of pandemic response team.
Similarly, South Koreadid it by following the blueprint that is they did enough tests and hunted thevirus to isolate it. The only formula to contain this creature is TEST, TEST,and TEST which is given by WHO. South Korea followed and tested more than 10,000people per day. That strict and disciplined action prevented them fromexperiencing the future disaster which most of the European nations areexperiencing. They knew one mistake and the game will be over so, they tookthe right action at the right moment and moved ahead.
World Health Organization has been requesting all the countries to follow the protocol so that the upcoming havoc in developing nations can be prevented. That’s why WHO put Nepal in a very high-risk zone among Asian countries. Instead of listening to the expert, Nepalese authorities have been wasting the most crucial time to save its citizens. Of course, a lot of time has passed but, it is not too late. If we had acted like Taiwan, we would have a different scenario and the situation would not have been like an iceberg phenomenon. Although the Taiwanese and South Korean model is not possible in the context of Nepal, it can learn a bit and adopt it now and for the future.
How can Nepal act in this crisis? The most important thing that is required now is honesty and transparency along with the equipment and the human resources. Unfortunately, Nepal is lacking all these factors but, there is a possibility to contain the virus and save people’s lives if the authorities act wisely and with more dedication. Nepal should think differently and very cleverly with whatever the resources are available now. We should come forth and start activating our system from the federal to the state level. We should mobilize some 50,000 human resources and establish at least 5 testing centers in each state and start testing 3000 to 5000 people every day by bike through and drive through likewise South Korea. There is already a blueprint; we just have to follow that. We should sprint testing phase-wise; first, the high-risk individuals, who have traveling history, then suspected and vulnerable population. Testing, hunting, and quarantine are the only solution left for Nepal. We need to sprint rather than marathon if we want to contain the virus.