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Health Summit 2021: Know All About COVID-19 Resurgence, The Impending Third Wave And More

Health Summit 2021: Know All About COVID-19 Resurgence, The Impending Third Wave And More

Health Summit 2021 saw the coming together of the best minds from the field of healthcare and medicine to shed light on various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Written by Jahnavi Sarma |Published : August 1, 2021 8:48 AM IST

The COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of disappearing from our lives soon. After the first wave of the pandemic, scientists worked round-the-clock to develop an effective vaccine to combat the deadly and highly transmissible virus. In record time, vaccines were developed and the world heaved a sigh of relief. But this was short-lived. Just as countries around the world including India started their vaccination programmes, the pandemic once again reared its head in the form of variants, mutations some of which were more transmissible than the original virus. India went through a devastating second wave of the pandemic and just as the situation started to look a little better, experts and healthcare professionals started talking about an impending third wave. This virus, much like the mythical Hydra of Greek mythology which regenerated each time its head was cut off, seems to bounce back each time we rejoice at having found a way of fighting it.

The second season of the ZeeDigital Health Summit deals with all this and more. The Health Summit 2021 saw the coming together of some of the greatest minds from the field of healthcare and medicine. We bring to you a recap of the summit here where Prof (Dr) Ashok Seth, chairman, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute was the Keynote Speaker and in which we had Coviself as the associate partner, Dell as the technology partner, SBI as the banking partner, Mankind Pharma as the health partner and Godrej Proteckt as hygiene partner.

Session 1: Dealing with the second wave

In India, the second wave of the pandemic happened soon after the start of the ambitious mass vaccination programme. This led to a devastating breakdown of the country's healthcare infrastructure, and we saw unimaginable scenes of pain and suffering. There was a shortage of everything from oxygen, hospital beds, medicines to nurses and doctors. In this session of the Health Summit, eminent personalities like Dr Randeep Guleria, Director AIIMS, Dr Sushila Kataria, Senior Director, Internal Medicine, Medanta and Kamna Chibber, Head of Mental Health Department and Behaviourial Sciences, Fortis Healthcare, shared their views and insights on what led to such major devastation during the second wave and the lessons that we have learnt from this. They also shared their insights and experience in dealing with emerging complications, use of steroids, mental stress, overmedication and more. Watch it here to know all about it.

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Session 2: Preparing for the third wave

We are now faced with the possibility of a third wave of the pandemic. Many experts say that vaccination is the only way to keep ourselves safe. But, in India only about 5.5 per cent of the population is fully jabbed. Of course, we have to take into account the size of the population when we see this number. Now, as we slowly recover from the second wave, many states have eased lockdown restrictions, and some have even done away with all kinds of lockdown restrictions. This slow pace of vaccination coupled with opening up of lockdowns to enable economic activity and a general covid fatigue in the masses are the factors that can trigger the third wave of COVID-19.

In this session, Dr. Paritosh Baghel, Consultant Internal Medicine, SL Raheja Hospital- Fortis Associate, Dr Rahul Pandit, Director, Critical Care Services, Fortis Hospitals, Mumbai, and Dr Sandeep Budhiraja, Group Medical Director, Max Healthcare, share their views on the importance of getting inoculated, emergence of variants, India's vaccination programme, the impending third wave and whether it will affect children more and strategies needed to combat this and further waves that may come upon us. Watch the Health Summit 2021 here to know all about it.

Session 3: Role of alternative therapies

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the emergence of alternative therapies in a big way. The humble kadha, steam inhalation, increasing the intake of turmeric, sipping hot water, drinking herbal teas, turning to homeopathy medicines, pranayama, all these and more have been used to prevent COVID-19, fight it and recover from it. Many of these remedies were unscientific and became popular due to viral messages and forwards. But alternative or integrative therapies work. You just have to get it right. Which is why, this session brings together some of the best minds from the field of alternative therapies to guide you and assist you to stay safe from COVID-19. Eminent personalities like Dr. Kalyan Bannerji, Founder of Dr Kalyan Bannerji Clinic, Mahesh Vats, Dean, All India Institute of Ayurveda, Ishi Khosla, renowned Nutritionist and Author and Rashi Rao, Certified Yoga Expert share their invaluable knowledge and explain the role of alternative or integrative therapies in fighting the deadly virus. Watch it here to know everything about this.

Session 4: Indian healthcare infrastructure

We had all the evidence that India is ill-equipped to handle an emergency like Covid during the second wave. Though major advances were made in the past one year, there is still more that needs to be done. In April 2020, there was just one ventilator in the public health care system to cater to 81,000 citizens. Today, it stands at one ventilator for every 15,245 people. This is an improvement and a major one, no doubt. But a majority of those ventilators were added post the devastating oxygen shortage seen in the second wave. In this session, we have Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, Dr Sandeep Budhiraja, Group Medical Director, Max Healthcare and Mr. Gaurav Gupta, Co-founder, Navia Life Care, sharing their views on how the Indian health infrastructure can be improved to fight this pandemic and any other threat that may emerge in due course of time. Discussions also centred around the huge urban-rural divide in healthcare facilities and how public-private participation can ease the situation. Watch it here to know it all.