World Health Day is being observed all over the world, including Pakistan, which is celebrated every year on the occasion of the founding day of the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO held the First World Health Assemble in 1948 and decided to mark the day on April 7 every year. The aim of declaring April 7 as international Health Day was to illustrate the attention of the world communities towards the significance of global health.
World Health Day works as a medium in driving the assistance of the communities in moving towards Universal Health Coverage. This means ensuring that everybody, universally can access necessary quality health services without facing financial hardship.
World Health Day 2021: Theme
This year, the World Health Organization is drawing attention to the importance of global health. This year, the theme is “Building a Fairer and Healthier World for Everyone.”
Particularly today, when the communities are witnessing the third wave of Covid-19, it has become even more essential to celebrate this day and focus on the steps to be taken to tackle the issues at hand.
Health authorities have been constantly sharing safety precautions and steps one should take to stay protected from the novel COVID-19 even if you have been vaccinated as third waves of the virus gripped the world.
The latest situation of coronavirus worldwide
Coronavirus has infected 133,111,401 people in more than 200 countries and regions around the world, while 2,888,757 people have lost their lives. The number of active cases is 228.61 million.
COVID-19 deaths are rising once again across the world, especially in India, Brazil and United States. Health officials blame more infectious variants that were first detected in South Africa and UK along with public fatigue with lockdowns and other limitations.
Today, more than 4,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported in Pakistan. The number of people infected with the virus has exceeded 700,000 while the death toll is more than 15,000. The number of active cases is 64,373.
Health system in Pakistan
The national health infrastructure comprises 1201 hospitals, 5518 Basic Health Units, 683 Rural Health Centers, 5802 Dispensaries, 731 Maternity & Child Health Centers and 347 TB centers, and the total availability of beds in these health facilities is estimated at 123394.
According to the report of the Economic Survey of the Ministry of Finance in 2018-19, there were 220,829 registered doctors in Pakistan while the number of dentists was 22,595 and the number of nurses was 188,474.
When these figures were compared with the population of Pakistan, it was found that there was only one doctor available for every 963 people while there was only one bed capacity for every 1,608 people in hospitals.
According to the Finance Ministry’s Economic Survey, Pakistan has been spending less than 1% of its GDP on health every year for decades, but these figures are only for the public health sector.
Healthcare in Pakistan includes both public and private sectors. The private sector serves around 72 percent of the population. Private hospitals and healthcare institutions constantly better their public counterparts, as measured by the overall quality of healthcare and patient satisfaction.
A common misunderstanding is that healthcare services in the public area are free of charge to Pakistani people. This is not the case, as 78% of the population continues to pay for healthcare out of their own pockets.
Call for the fair distribution of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines
The main purpose of celebrating International Health Day on an annual basis is to raise awareness on health issues and to persuade governments in countries around the world to provide basic health care to their people.
Worryingly, along with other diseases, the prevention of coronavirus has become the most important issue for every country because corona is a disease that has damaged human health as well as economic and social relations.
At least 370.3 million people of the global population have received a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Sunday, according to the latest figures from research and data provider firm Our World in Data.
However, the WHO is urging countries to donate more doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines to help meet vaccination targets for the most vulnerable in poorer countries.
The richest countries in the world are stockpiling the corona vaccine, which is beyond the reach of many poor countries. Vaccination in Pakistan is so slow that according to Bloomberg, it will take 10 years for 75% of the country’s population to be vaccinated.
In this situation, it is the duty of every citizen of Pakistan to take precautionary measures against every disease, including COVID-19, while it is the responsibility of the government to significantly increase the health budget to provide basic health care to the people and bring reform all health-related institutions including government hospitals.
