Shillong, June 5: Meghalaya Government will be hosting a live online session on ways to fight COVID-19 virus with renowned public health expert Dr. Mathew Varghese of St. Stephen’s Hospital, Delhi on June 6, 2021 at 7 PM onwards.
The online interaction session is being organized by the National Health Mission of Meghalaya.
Dr. Mathew Varghese is an internationally renowned orthopaedic surgeon and public health expert running India’s only polio ward at St Stephen’s Hospital in Delhi. He has been diagnosing and surgically-correcting and rehabilitating people affected with polio for over 32 years. These are the people that were infected with polio before the vaccine became available, and in Dr. Varghese’s estimation, it may take another 50 years for such population to be cured of the disease and India would be truly free from polio then. The last case of polio in India was reported on January 13, 2011 in the Howrah district in West Bengal. India is currently declared as polio free but the number of those that survived the ailment in the 1990s run in millions and they continue to suffer.
Dr. Varghese has been called by Microsoft-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates as one of five “heroes saving the world” who inspire him.
The session will also be joined by Dr. Careen Lyngdoh Pakrasi of Medanta Hospital, Delhi; Dr. Adreena Lyngdoh, the Additional DMHO of East Khasi Hills; and Dr. Robert Marak, the District Surveillance officer of IDSP, East Khasi Hills.
