National Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases Centre (NEIDC) stressed the “important and essential” role of primary health care, primarily provided at health centers across the Kingdom, to detect illnesses early, especially communicable diseases, which could cause pandemics that could be diagnosed early, prevented and responded to. The center also stressed the “remarkable” importance of labs’ role in Jordan’s health centers, in developing initial diagnosis to discover any strange disease phenomena, especially infectious diseases, according to a NEIDC statement issued Thursday. In an effort to enhance importance of primary health care, as an entry point for prevention of communicable diseases and pandemics, the center called on supporting initiatives aimed at achieving universal health coverage that enables all people to access and obtain integrated and quality health services without suffering financial hardship. Achieving comprehensive health coverage would enable all Jordan’s residents to promote health by ensuring continuous prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care, which helps in detecting diseases, and responding to pandemics early, the center said in its statement. COVID-19 pandemic, poverty, unemployment and population migrations, drew attention of health policy makers at the global level, specifically the World Health Organization (WHO), to the importance of reorienting health systems to target primary health care services within the framework of universal health coverage, the center noted. The center added that Jordan was one of the first countries to introduce primary health care and develop a national vaccination program against communicable diseases within its health system immediately after declaring principle of primary health care at a WHO conference in 1978 in Almaty, capital of Kazakhstan at the time, in which all countries participated, including the Kingdom. Primary and comprehensive health centers affiliated to the Ministry of Health, whose numbers exceeded more than 700 are distributed across the Kingdom, are accessible and visitor-friendly, and provide primary health care services that include primary diagnosis and treatment for infectious and common diseases, free of charge, or at affordable prices, NEIDC pointed out.
Source: Jordan News Agency