Former chief scientist of World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on Friday stressed the need for Lifesciences industry and healthcare providers to evolve strategies to improve communication to people.
She said this pointing to the impact misinformation spread by social media caused during the pandemic. “We saw that with vaccines, the amount of misinformation ... probably tens of thousands of lives [were lost] because people despite having access did not take the vaccine because they had been misinformed,” she said.
Dr. Swaminathan, who is chairperson of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), was speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Creating a healthier world in 2047 - role of India’ at a conference organised here by CII southern region. Another aspect the pandemic highlighted was the existing inequalities in society, she said, calling for a need for a global alliance.
Past president of CII and executive vice chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Shobana Kamineni moderated the session, in which Dr. Roger Glass, director, Fogarty International Center, National Institute of Health, highlighted the need to improve human health through compassion and service.
Earlier, participating in the summit on ‘South India@100: Going Beyond Boundaries’ CII Southern Region chairperson Suchitra Ella underscored the need to build adequate infrastructure that supports innovation and the significance of bringing women into the workforce. CII director General Chandrajit Banerjee said that the industry body, which through its India@75 Foundation had undertaken several initiatives like volunteering, functional literacy programmes, is working on the vision to be developed on the parameters of economic, moral and technological leadership for India@100. CII president Sanjiv Bajaj said next decade belongs to India.
