Director of the Public Health Department at the MoPH, Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, taking part in a virtual public health forum.
Doha: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) organised a virtual public health forum under the title ‘The role of technology in public health response to pandemics’, with the participation of representatives from governmental and non-governmental stakeholders.
The forum was within the framework of the Qatar Public Health Strategy 2017-2022, which aims to establish an integrated and comprehensive system that provides effective solutions to current and future public health challenges.
It aimed at enhancing the contribution of key stakeholders in planning for the future of public health in the State of Qatar, providing diverse insights on public health solutions and challenges, participation and communication within the public health community, and involving key stakeholders in the relevant business enterprises.
During the opening of the forum, Director of the Public Health Department at the MoPH Sheikh Dr. Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Thani said that the COVID-19 pandemic has become a real test for many aspects of health care systems and their general readiness in particular. It shows that public health monitoring programs and the infrastructure available at the regional and global levels are not consistently perfect in many cases, he said.
Despite this, the State of Qatar, he said, succeeded in handling the challenge and introduced rapid and timely national public health measures, with the rapid expansion of hospital capacity and the testing of quarantine and isolation facilities, as these measures led Qatar to succeed in maintaining one of the lowest mortality rates of COVID-19 in the world.
He added that digital technologies are used to support the public health response to the COVID-19 virus around the world, including conducting population surveys, identifying cases, contact tracing, and assessing interventions based on mobility data and communicating with the public, while these rapid responses take advantage of billions of mobile phones and large data sets over the Internet, connected devices, relatively low-cost computing resources and advances in machine learning.
The Director of the Public Health Department noted that technology has proven to be a useful and necessary tool to help ensure that all entities in the State of Qatar, including the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and others, can continue to provide basic public services during the Covid-19 pandemic, pointing out that the role of technology is evidenced by the fact that while maintaining social distancing, such conferences and events can be held virtually.
He added that one of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is to remain prepared in advance to face any crisis at the individual and institutional level, and all that is needed to combat an epidemic like COVID-19 is preparedness, with the importance of adapting faster to changes in technology, and continuing to invest in building technology systems for better preparedness.
For her part, Dr Dalia Samhouri, Director of Program Area Manager, Country Health Emergency Preparedness and International Health Regulations at the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean at the World Health Organization, spoke about the role of technology in controlling the pandemic in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
The forum held many sessions during which many important topics were discussed, including the main roles of new technologies in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, and supporting public health in general.
