LONDON, OCTOBER 11

Participants underscored the need for disaster management specialists to lead efforts to prevent and control the spread of the new coronavirus disease.

Speaking in the ‘Preparedness and Mitigation Measures for Pandemic and Natural Disasters Risk Reduction’ session of the second edition of World Knowledge Convention organised by the Non-Resident Nepalis Association yesterday, former education minister Gangalal Tuladhar said the government lacked efforts to mitigate the infection.

“Although the three tiers of government has concurrent rights in relation to disaster management, the pandemic continues to rise for lack of effective coordination,” Tuladhar said.

The number of the novel coronavirus cases has crossed the 100,000 mark in the country till date, with more than 600 deaths.

He said the current situation in the country was largely because formation of the Crisis Management Centre to respond to the novel coronavirus had overlooked the structure envisaged by the country’s constitution.

Similarly, former health minister Gagan Kumar Thapa was particularly concerned about the lack of ICUs for those critically hit by COVID-19.

Likewise, former health secretary Dr Sudha Sharma said the political leadership had taken the lead instead of the disaster management specialists in responding to the pandemic.

A version of this article appears in print on October 12, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.