Capacity-building global event seeks vibrant collective role of stake holders to combat COVID-19.

MIRPUR (AJK) -- The 3-day series of capacity-building training sessions for Master Trainers, Health Managers and Healthcare Service Providers on Prevention of infection and Standard Precautionary Measures regarding COVID-19 concluded at state-run Mohtrma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed (MBBS) Medical College here on Thursday.

The AJK Population Welfare Department hosted the essentially-needed trainings for the Population and Healthcare workers, medical consultants and population and health managers, supported by UNFPA (United Nations Population Funds) Pakistan with the collaboration of Jhpiego Pakistan -an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University-under UNFPA funded program, designed to respond COVID-19 emergency by strengthening capacity of existing heath workforce engaged in emergency response and routine service delivery. The program regarding emergency response is being implemented across the country.

Addressing the moot, the chair - Raja muhammad Razzaque, Secretary population welfare Department of Azad Jammu and Kashmir government, said that the pandemic of COVID-19 entailed various dimensions and repercussions for global economy including our social and cultural systems while it has put an precedented pressure on our health system. He emphasized to realise that business as usual is not going to work and we should prepare ourselves for a system that should have the capacity to work and deliver despite the pandemic.

'Although, Govt. of AJK took timely decision to lockdown the State which gave highly encouraging and positive results and we in AJK, with kindness of Allah Almighty, have minimum number of cases but yet the threat is hovering and we need to act quickly and robustly to contain the coronavirus in logical and conclusive manner', he said and added 'we, in these testing times, need to transform the challenges into opportunities. That's why, Govt. is making all possible efforts to build the capacity of our population and health work force to regain its strength for service delivery and to fight back the pandemic effectively, he said.

Razaq especially thanked UNFPA Pakistan for supporting the capacity building of AJK population and health work force while relying on international best practices to contain the pandemic with national zeal. He also appreciated the Jhpiego Pakistan for coming forward for imparting trainings to handle the challenge in concrete manner. He equally thanked the Principal and faculty of MBBS Medical college for...