Set up permanent agency for Covid-19

MANY people are dying from the Coronavirus (Covid-19) and many more are contracting the virus every day in PNG and around the world and it’s not funny anymore.
While I commend the PNG Covid-19 response efforts, headed by the pandemic controller David Manning and his deputy Dr Esorom Daoni, from Health Department, I feel the situation has gone beyond being able to be managed in Port Moresby and respective provincial health authorities (PHAs).
On the clinical and scientific aspect, scientists have discovered many new variants since the original Covid-19 – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and now, Omicron.
The serious and more lethal variant is Delta which has now reached more than 132 countries, including PNG.
In the last wave of the Covid-19 last month (Delta playing a dominant role), a lot of people died in PNG as evident by the number of coffins repatriated each week from around six per week to 18 per week as a CEO of one of the airline companies said last week.
We all have our own Covid-19 stories to tell.
All over the world, countries are very concerned with the new Omicron variant and are shutting down all flights to and from most African countries where the new variant appears to have emanated.
Our closest neighbour, Australia, has also followed suit with its own restrictions imposed.
The Government is also taking a proactive role in addressing the issue by allocating funding to the controller and the pandemic response team to carry out their operations.
This includes donations from other countries.
Millions will be spent on this challenge and PHAs are asked to provide their plans to address the issue before the Government can provide additional funding.
My concern is, there has to be accountability and outcome-based programmes in place to effectively reduce the number of new cases and, more importantly, prevent any more deaths.
I see a need for a permanent secretariat, as alluded to by the West New Britain Governor last week in Parliament, to be set up like the National AIDS Council.
It needs an Act of Parliament as the virus will not go away, as per statistics provided by experts around the world, including the director of Infectious Disease Centre in the US.
It is going to be with us for a long long time, just like HIV/AIDS.
The Marape Government needs to get this organised and established now before going to the polls next year.
If it cannot be done with this government, then I strongly recommend to the incoming government to take this on board.
There should be people specifically tasked and who are appointed based on merit and experienced to run the agency where funding can be managed from a central location.
Otherwise, we have an Apeclike financial situation where only some funds are acquitted because many organisations were making decisions about money while the rest went missing as alluded to by the Finance Minister last week in Parliament.

Dr Banare Bun
Former Foundation Chairman
Parliamentary HIV/AIDS
Advocacy Committee (2004-07)