Webinar organized by World Affairs Council of Atlanta and Global Atlanta to discuss Covid Crisis in India
On May 13, World Affairs Council of Atlanta (WACA) organized a webinar co-hosted by Global Atlanta, the online magazine from Atlanta. The webinar was funded by UPS as well as members of WACA.
This webinar was organized to discuss the Covid-19 crisis in India and also to serve as a fundraiser for CARE India.
[Leftside Photo] Manoj Gopalakrishna is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CARE India. He is a Wharton alumnus and has over 25 years of leadership experience in global and Indian organizations. He has been a key contributor to the transformation of Hindustan Latex Limited, a leading healthcare organization with a diversified product, service and programme portfolio. He has worked with Becton Dickinson and Co. (BD) as its Managing Director, leading its South Asia operations. He was a member of the worldwide leadership team of BD, which is a Fortune 500 medical technology company. Under his leadership, BD grew into a company with manufacturing, R&D, and marketing operations in India. Prior to joining CARE, Manoj led HCL’s healthcare business as its CEO, where he pioneered the development of primary ambulatory care centres in Delhi NCR, in partnership with Johns Hopkins International.
[Rightside Photo] Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan is Ruth and O.C. Hubert Chair of Global Health, Director of Emory Global Diabetes Research Center and Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology at Emory University. Dr. Narayan is noted for substantial, multidisciplinary work in diabetes and non-communicable diseases (NCD) public health. He has been involved in several major national and international multi-center epidemiological studies, public health surveillance, translation research, and intervention studies. He is currently also exploring intriguing differences in the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes in South Asian and other developing countries’ populations globally. With more than 400 publications (Relative Citation Ratio in top 1% on NIH Icite; H-index >60 on Thompson; >110 on scholar.google), including several high-impact studies, his work exemplifies his leadership in diabetes and NCD public health.
Trevor Williams, Managing Editor, Global Atlanta, emphasized the vital role that India plays in the global economy. He also spoke of special relations that local Indian diaspora has where several major Indian companies have invested billions.
Williams introduced guest speakers: Manoj Gopalakrishna, CEO, CARE India; and Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan, Ruth and O.C. Hubert Chair of Global Health, Director of Emory Global Diabetes Research Center and Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology at Emory University.
Charles Shapiro, President, WACA moderated the panel and encouraged everyone to make a donation to CARE India for its Covid relief efforts.
Gopalakrishna updated on how CARE is coordinating its efforts with national and state government agencies to distribute the resources to right places. He spoke about CARE’s ‘Three Pillars of Response’ where CARE is helping to set up 100-bed hospitals that can handle mild case of Covid-19 so that the regular hospitals can handle the severe cases. He said that there are only 90,000 critical beds for a population of 1.2 billion. He said CARE is working to strengthen the oxygen system in the hospitals as well as supply oxygen cylinders. He further said that they are working towards community education, training the front line workers, and working with ministry of health care.
Dr. Narayan emphasized that we all need to learn the lesson that no country is alone, and we have to work together. He said that the virus is highly transferable, and knows no boundaries. He further underscored that no country should feel safe that the pandemic is behind us, that we are all in this together, that we have to cooperate and collaborate globally, and be open to share the data so we are not working in dark. He said that while India produces 70 percent of the world’s vaccine, only 3 percent of its population is vaccinated.
Some of the important points emphasized were universal mask mandate, avoiding crowding especially indoors, avoiding stockpiling of medication, adequate preparation by health system, sharing and accuracy of data, working together to provide data, well organized vaccination centers, collaborative efforts, and overcoming vaccine resistance from community.
- Geeta Mehrotra
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