Pakistan on Wednesday, inaugurated 155 District Disease Monitoring Units aimed at enabling local health workers to track and monitor COVID-19 spread.
These district monitoring units are in-fact designated spaces in already existing district health offices which will be equipped with state of the art audio-visual equipments which will be extensively interlinked and interconnected via internet.
The initiative is aimed at improving real-time tracking of COVID-19 infections and their spread at various levels.
The initiative is a joint collaboration between Pakistan and United States of America (USA). The US via its Agency for International Development (USAID) has also been assisting healthcare workers in Pakistan to conduct contact tracing for COVID-19 infections.
According to Julie Koenen – Mission Director USAID, the ability to detect and swiftly respond public health threats such as COVID-19 is critically significant.
These District Disease Monitoring and Response Units are a step towards capacity building of Pakistan’s healthcare system by inducting around 3,000 healthcare workers.
She underscored that interlinking between these units and provincial, regional and federal institutions, resources is a big challenge.
Meanwhile, Dr Faisal Sultan – Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health, has expressed gratitude towards US government for their support to Pakistan in developing a comprehensively integrated mechanism to track and tackle various diseases.
