PTI

United Nations/Geneva, May 22

India’s a million all-women ASHA volunteers have been honoured by the World Health Organisation on Sunday for his or her “crucial role” in offering direct entry to healthcare amenities in rural areas and their indefatigable efforts to rein within the coronavirus pandemic within the nation.

Accredited Social Health Activists—or ASHA volunteers—are Indian authorities’s affiliated health-care staff who’re the primary level of contact in rural India.

Most of them gained highlight through the peak of the pandemic in India for conducting door-to-door checks to hint coronavirus sufferers.

The WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus introduced six awards on Sunday to recognise excellent contributions to advancing world well being, demonstrated management and dedication to regional well being points.

Dr Tedros decides on the awardees for the World Health Organisation Director-General’s Global Health Leaders Awards.

The ceremony for the awards, which have been established in 2019, was a part of the live-streamed high-level opening session of the seventy fifth World Health Assembly.

“Among the honourees is ASHA, which means hope in Hindi. The more than 1 million female volunteers in India were honoured for their crucial role in linking the community with the health system, to ensure those living in rural poverty get access to primary health care services, as shown throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” it mentioned.

ASHA volunteers have additionally labored to offer maternal care and immunisation for kids towards vaccine-preventable illnesses; group well being care; therapy for hypertension and tuberculosis; and core areas of well being promotion for diet, sanitation and wholesome residing.

“At a time when the world is facing an unprecedented convergence of inequity, conflict, food insecurity, the climate crisis and a pandemic, this award recognises those who have made an outstanding contribution to protecting and promoting health around the world,” the WHO chief mentioned.

“These awardees embody lifelong dedication, relentless advocacy, a commitment to equity, and selfless service of humanity,” he added.

Among the opposite notable honourees have been the staff of polio vaccination staff from Afghanistan, who have been killed by armed gunmen within the nation’s Takhar and Kunduz provinces in February this yr.

These staff embody Mohamamd Zubair Khalazai, Najibullah Kosha, Shadab Yosufi, Shareefullah Hemati, Haseeba Omari, Khadija Attaee, Munira Hakimi, Robina Yosufi and her brother Shadab.

Four of those staff who have been ladies, had been reaching out to 1000’s of youngsters by means of house-to-house campaigns in north-eastern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is among the two polio-endemic international locations on the planet together with its neighbour Pakistan.

Attempts to eradicate this crippling virus from elements of Afghanistan and Pakistan have been severely hampered by lethal focusing on of vaccination groups lately by militants, who oppose these drives, claiming that polio drops trigger infertility.

Other honourees embody Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of worldwide non-governmental organisation Partners in Health, Dr Paul Farmer, who handed away in February this yr in Rwanda.

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