(Image source from: theweek.in)
KK Shailaja, Health Minister of Kerala was invited on a panel discussion by the United Nations on World Public Service Day 2020 for the efforts she took to fight Covid-19 in Kerala.
Kerala was the first state to record Covid-19 case in all over India. Kerala has recorded a total of 3,603 confirmed Covid-19 cases and out of which around 1,888 have already been recovered. Kerala has a total of 22 fatalities in the state.
Kerala is being praised for their success story on handling the Covid-19 situation by everyone across the world. Kerala Health Minister was lauded and honored by the United Nations by getting invited to the panel discussion on World Public Service day 2020. The panel discussion was on a virtual platform because of the health crisis and safety. The function saw the participation of top United Nation dignitaries including UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. The Director General of World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros was also a part of this discussion. This main topic of this discussion was the tackling of Covid-19 situation around the world.
Kerala Health Minister took to twitter to express her gratitude by saying “It was an honor to be a part of a panel.” It did not take time for the people on twitter to praise and acknowledge KK Shailaja for all the efforts by her and the Kerala Health sector. Hash tags like Pride of Kerala and pride of India had been trending on twitter post KK Shailaja’s tweet.
In the panel discussion, KK Shailaja spoke about Kerala’s experience in tackling Nipah Virus and two huge floods in 2018 and @019, where the health sector of the state played a huge role in tackling the unprecedented situations. The experiences that Kerala had while tackling the Nipah virus and the Kerala floods helped a lot to them in tackling the Covid-19 in a timely manner.
Shailaja also mentioned that Kerala did not wait for its first case to start the tackling of the pandemic. Since the time coronavirus cases got reported in Wuhan, China where the virus originated in the first place, Kerala got into the track of the World Health Organization and followed every standard operating protocols and international norms. Shailaja also explained the 3 strategies which Kerala has implied to tackle the pandemic. The first strategy was to ‘Trace, Quarantine, Test, Isolate & Treat.’ The second was to- Break the Chain and the third strategy was- Reverse Quarantine.
Kerala got its first reported case on 31st January. The patient was the person who arrived directly from Wuhan where the whole coronavirus originated in the first place.
Kerala has been successful in keeping the contact spread to below 12.5 percent and the mortality rate to below 0.6 percent.
World Public Service Day is observed by the United Nations on June 23rd every year. It is celebrated to appreciate and pay respect to public servants across the world. In 2002 UN also started a recognition programme called the UN Public Service Awards (UNPSA), to reward the excellent work done by the public servants.
By Deepika Agarwal
