President Park Geun-hye (center) discusses ways to swiftly and effectively deal with new types of contagious diseases, including MERS, that may hit the nation. She's speaking with a group of experts on June 24 at Cheong Wa Dae.
President Park Geun-hye met with a group of international experts on disease control and prevention to listen to their expertise in dealing with the outbreak of contagious diseases like MERS that recently struck the nation, at Cheong Wa Dae on June 24.
The group included Director Sylvie Briand of the Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases Department of the World Health Organization (WHO), Director of Global Health for Public Health England Brian McCloskey, who also serves as an adviser to the WHO, and Stephen Redd, the director of the Public Health Preparedness & Response Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“I hope experts like you can share your experiences and knowhow in effectively putting under control the life-threatening MERS disease, a virus that is a new one in Korea,” said President Park. “As we live in an era where everyone can freely travel around the world, this type of epidemic can’t be handled by a single country. It requires international joint efforts. Such international cooperation is very important at this point,” the president stressed.
President Park Geun-hye (left) talks with international experts in disease control and prevention about ways to strengthen international cooperation on June 24.
“Lack of information or the spread of distorted information can cause much bigger problems than the disease itself,” Briand warned. “It could take a toll on society as a whole, for example, leading to a blow to the domestic economy.”
The experts said that since we only have very limited knowledge of such new epidemics, such as MERS, even a country like Korea, which boasts one of the best health care systems, could become vulnerable to this kind of contagious virus. For that, they said, we need to prepare ourselves against fatal diseases in advance.
“It’s obvious that the nation failed to control the virus in the initial stages, however, afterward it implemented enhanced countermeasures at the government level. The government should remedy the shortcomings that it has experienced throughout the process and should renew the national response system, as well,” they said.
“In this day and age where it has become common to see the flow of international exchanges around the world, we will face many more outbreaks of contagious viruses in the years to come. The international community must prepare an emergency response scenario for each possible virus and must boost cooperation on this issue, constantly communicating with each other and sharing related expertise,” they said.
President Park Geun-hye (left) greets international experts involved in disease control and prevention at Cheong Wa Dae on June 24.
In response, President Park vowed that, “We will fundamentally improve the current response system so that we can more effectively confront the outbreak of any new pandemic. When the MERS virus is brought under control, the government will further work together with international experts to analyze problems with our response and come up with fundamental measures to prevent similar outbreaks in the future.”
Expressing her sincere gratitude to the participating delegates for giving their feedback, President Park asked, “Please join forces to strengthen cooperation on this matter among the international community.”
By Sohn JiAe
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Cheng Wa Dae
jiae5853@korea.kr
