Preparing for Public Health Emergencies

Public health emergencies in India and globally are on the rise. They are defined as an occurrence or imminent threat of an illness or health condition caused by bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic diseases, or an infectious agent or biological toxin that poses a substantial risk to humans by either causing a significant number of human fatalities or permanent or long-term disability. Public health emergencies include influenza, re-emerging diseases, and natural or human disasters.

Public health emergency preparedness (PHEP) is the capability of the public health and health care systems, communities and individuals to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from health emergencies, particularly those whose scale, timing or unpredictability threaten to overwhelm routine capabilities. Preparedness involves a coordinated and continuous process of planning and implementation that relies on measuring performance and taking corrective action. One of the most vital lessons of the COVID–19 pandemic is that disasters can pass in any community, at any time, with multiple hazards. There have been many complex and cascading risk scenarios worldwide (Philippines, India, Japan and the Republic of Korea) that collectively provide insights. When a disaster occurs during a pandemic, it would be a concurrent crisis. Simultaneously, natural hazards directly impacted the COVID–19 pandemic by disrupting health services and infrastructure, making social distancing more difficult amongst people displaced by a natural hazard.