The World Health Organization (WHO) On Sunday called upon South-East Asian Countries to scale up public health infrastructure, implement social measures and accelerate vaccination to prevent a third wave of COVID-19.
This week Maldives and Myanmar were added to the list of countries that had an active transmission of coronavirus variants of concern. Other countries that were identified earlier were Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste, WHO said.
The opening economies and relaxing social measures, along with the coronavirus variants are the reason behind the recent surge in cases worldwide.
"We need to continuously strengthen our efforts to test, trace and isolate. Physical distancing, hand hygiene and proper wearing of masks need to be stringently implemented.
"These measures should be in full force and for longer periods in areas reporting more transmissible variants of concerns," said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the Regional Director of WHO South-East Asia.
Along with scaling of vaccination drives, countries need to implement public health and social measures in a tailored and agile manner, she said.
In a statement earlier, Singh said, a risk-based approach is needed for public health and social measures and these measures should be implemented by the lowest administrative level and adjusted to the intensity of transmission and the capacity of health systems.
At present different countries are experiencing different phases of COVID-19 evolution and are facing varying epidemiological scenarios. The region is currently witnessing a decline in active cases primarily due to a dip in cases in India but other nations are still seeing a spike.
"We must not forget that the pandemic is still around and must guard against complacency at any level. We must continue to implement combinations of public health and social measures until globally there is high vaccine coverage among health workers, and high-risk and vulnerable groups," Singh said in the statement.