ISLAMABAD: World Health Organization (WHO) Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has listed Pakistan among a handful of countries whose preparation and response offer lessons for the rest of the world to fight the COVID-19 outbreak and future pandemics.

As coronavirus cases have dropped to a trickle in Pakistan, life has gotten largely back to normal, and the last remnants of partial lockdown restrictions have been lifted. Restaurants and tourism have reopened, and schools and universities, along with marriage halls, are set to open this month.

On Thursday Pakistan reported six new deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, while active coronavirus cases have dropped to 5,540. The South Asian nation has so far reported 299,855 infections and 6,365 deaths.

“Pakistan has used the infrastructure it developed in its fight against polio to tackle COVID-19,” Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing this week. “Community health workers, previously used to vaccinate children for polio, have been redeployed for contact tracing and monitoring.”

He also named Thailand, Italy, Mongolia, Mauritius and Uruguay for their preparation for, and response against, the COVID-19 pandemic, adding: “This will not be the last pandemic,” he said. “History teaches us that outbreaks and pandemics are a fact of life. But when the next pandemic comes, the world must be ready – more ready than it was this time.”

Ghebreyesus gave other examples of countries who had done well, including Cambodia, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Senegal, Spain, Viet Nam and more and said: “Many of these countries have done well because they learned lessons from previous outbreaks of SARS, MERS, measles, polio, Ebola, flu and other diseases. That’s why it’s vital that we all learn the lessons this pandemic is teaching us.”