The world expected an #influenza virus, but got #coronavirus! Here is my #thread on something new that I learnt about #pandemic #preparedness #plan. Did you know who had initiated a pandemic preparedness plan in 1999? Its @WHO :D Okay, here is what I found out! (1/n)
The WHO's plan was focused on tackling the #influenza virus, which was assumed to be the next big threat to the world. Remember #swineflu #birdflu? No harm, right? Here is what it read - who.int/influenza/prep… (2/n)
Based on this, many member countries, including #India, came up with theirs. I found a DRAFT influenza pandemic preparedness plan from India. I am not sure if this is authentic, but this has some information - medlineindia.com/influenza%20h1… (3/n)
The details are great - it lists elaborate steps to be taken by the central, state and district level administrations. There are uses of phrases like #SocialDistancing, #masks, #Quarantine and some estimated need for PPEs for different professionals. (4/n)
There is also something about what to do if there is a community transmission-"social distancing measures need to be imposed such as the closure of school, college, business, cinemas, theatres and markets." Mass gatherings discouraged and public transport cut (5/n)
Border control measures, responsibilities of individual ministries etc also listed. There is a wishful mention of a vaccine being developed in six months since the start of a pandemic, and a suggested drug for H1N1 influenza, Oseltamivir, with details on the dosage. (6/n)
Fast forward to 2019 Dec, there was an "update" to this, where representation from WHO and India worked on a new pandemic preparedness plan - who.int/india/news/det…. This meeting was attended by a big list of stakeholders (7/n)
Here is some sort of "minutes" of this meeting - carnegieindia.org/2019/12/06/ind… Once this was out, some studies did come up that raised doubts, had commentaries and compared this plan to others. I list a few below (8/n)
Here is a commentary on the updated plan ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P… and the study here- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20859043 touches the legislation aspect of the plan."India needs a critical mass of public health legislations to make impact and not police acts to control epidemics" (9/n)
In March 2020, the country came up with a comprehensive preparedness plan for coronavirus - mohfw.gov.in/pdf/3Containme… Well this was the only document I got from MOHFW on pandemic preparedness. Not sure where others are hidden. If you know, please tell me. (10/n)
My observations - Like many countries, we had some "plans". Perhaps, we always thought it would never be a reality! When we were prepared with the right answer, we got the wrong question! Well, so we screwed it up! (11/n) #LockdownLearning #COVID_19 #ScienceJournalism
Thanks for reading! Would love to hear if you have other observations and comments! (12/12)
After reaching out to some people involved in the CarnigeIndia meeting, I understand that this was a parallel effort from the WHO-MoHFW effort, but on the same lines. Timelines are also same. However, what's bothering me is where is that document of the plan from MoHFW?
CLARIFICATION: As I understand from hearing from people at Carnegie India, this meeting had NOTHING to do with the WHO-MoHFW initative. However, this also brought together India's top scientists to discuss a pandemic preparedness plan. The meeting minutes are in the above link.
