The Covid-19 pandemic has unveiled the wreckage of the public health system in developing and developed countries. Highlighting the importance of epidemic experts amid Covid-19, the mayors of ten city corporations in Bangladesh has recommended the appointment of epidemiologists in every city corporation.
Under the joint venture of Save the Children in Bangladesh and South Asia Field Epidemiology and Technology Network, Inc (Safetynet), under guidance from Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives (MoLGRD&C) and US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) under the “City Leadership Summit to Strengthen Urban Public Health”, speakers spoke about public health in Bangladesh at a meeting titled “Challenges of the Urban Public Health system and ways to overcome” on Wednesday.
The leadership summit aimed to address the challenges of current urban health system and its way forward to transform into a sustainable preventive healthcare approach and understand the role and necessity of “Public Health Epidemiologist” in urban setting.
They highlighted the public health challenges in their respective areas during and after the Covid-19 pandemic and explained the need for at least one epidemiologist in every city corporation.
Except Dhaka and Narayanganj districts, the mayors of all the districts of the country have joined the meeting.
In this event, US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter D Haas said: “The whole world has realized the importance of public health experts, especially epidemiologists, during epidemics, as a result of which there is more work to be done in this regard.”
US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter D Haas CourtesyPanel Mayor Afroza Kalam of Chittagong City Corporation said: “Despite its many complications, the epidemiologist position is essential if we truly want to work with public health.”
“Due to rapid urbanization, if the basic facilities of city dwellers are disrupted, public health is also threatened. The post of Public Health Pathologist should be included in the city corporation for identifying and mitigating public health problems,” said Comilla City Corporation Mayor Arfanul Haque Rifat.
LGRD Minister Md Tajul Islam said: “The city corporation has been empowered by law to provide primary health care. As far as I know we have been given a proposal in the organogram to include epidemiologists in city corporations. We need some collective approval in this regard.
“The Ministry of Health is responsible for taking care of urban and rural healthcare. If the local government is empowered in mega healthcare centres such as Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, Bangabandhu Medical College and Hospital, the central government can bear some of the burden. It will be possible to fulfil many responsibilities by the central government,” he added.
Muhammad Ibrahim, secretary of Local Government Division, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives said: “We want to pledge that we will try to do whatever we need to improve the city's health management. As a local government department, we will help to achieve these goals. We give special importance to fulfilling these goals.”
The leadership summit was held under the collaborative program titled “Strengthening Urban Public Health System” funded by US CDC.
The program aims to provide public health technical assistance to the city leaders in their strategic planning and implementation efforts, and to develop and deploy a new cadre of public health epidemiologist into the city corporation health to address the unmet public health leadership need. It is being implemented in all 12 city corporations of Bangladesh with support from the LGRD ministry.
Under this program, a two-month long public health campaign on different priority issues has been conducted in all city corporations as part of the initiative to address the key public health problems.
