ISLAMABAD - Universities and medi­cal institutions from 11 countries, including Pa­kistan and China yester­day attended an interna­tional online forum and discussed post-COVID healthcare opportunities and challenges.

The Forum was organ­ised by South and South­east Asia Medical Educa­tion and Service Alliance (SSAMESA), China Eco­nomic Net (CEN) has re­ported. The participants exchanged in-depth views on the opportuni­ties and challenges fac­ing the higher medical education and health­care industry in the post-COVID-19 era.

The seminar titled “New Challenges, New Opportunities, New Co­operation - The Reform and Development of Higher Medical Educa­tion and Health Care in the Post-pandemic Era” was set to strengthen ex­changes and cooperation in higher medical educa­tion, medical and health services, public health systems and smart med­ical construction in the post-epidemic era among medical institutions from South and Southeast Asia.

It is one of the sub-fo­rums of the 2020 On­line Forum on Education Cooperation in South & Southeast Asia organized and sponsored by China’s Yunnan Provincial De­partment of Education.

According to the event organizer and also the SSAMESA secretariat Kunming Medical Uni­versity (KMU), China, 16 medical experts including Prof. Li Song, President of KMU, China, Prof. Javed Akram, Vice Chancellor of University of Health Sciences (UHS), Lahore, spoke on medical person­nel training, medical ser­vices and COVID-19 pre­vention and control.

]Yuan Bin, Party Secre­tary of KMU, said, “The COVID-19 epidemic is a common challenge fac­ing all mankind. Only through solidarity and cooperation can coun­tries overcome the epi­demic and promote new progress in medical ed­ucation and health care.”

Prof. Javed Akram from Pakistan delivered a well-received speech with the theme “Chal­lenges & Opportunities in Medical Education for Health Universities”.

The experts had a full exchange on the re­form and development of medical education and health care in the post-epidemic era, and put forward opinions and suggestions on pro­moting regional cooper­ation in medical educa­tion and health care.

SSAMESA, initiated by KMU and Shanghai Ji­aotong University (SJTU) in 2019, is a non-govern­ment and non-profit in­ternational medical insti­tutions consortium joined by 39 medical institu­tions from 12 countries in the South and Southeast Asia. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Alliance has donated masks, fore­head thermometers and other PPEs to some of its members.