FAO Bangladesh has hosted its first COVID-19 scientific research webinar, in support of the country's health emergency response.
Research has been constantly revealing new findings about the virus. Remaining up-to-date on the latest insights and guidance is a major challenge for everyone, even technical advisors.
To help address this issue, experts at FAO’s Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) project launched a webinar series for UN technical advisors and national counterparts working on the COVID-19 emergency response.  Each webinar in the series will be dedicated to different area of the response and will feature guest panellists from other UN agencies, as well as the national and global scientific community.
The first session was on prevention, epidemiology, and clinical management. Guest panellists were Professor Sayedur Rahman, Chairman, Department of Pharmacology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College, and epidemiologist Nabila Hossain Purno from UNFPA.
The participants discussed a scientific paper on the effect of the drug hydroxychloroquine and essential mineral zinc on COVID-19 hospital patients, and another paper on the effectiveness of face masks in preventing infection.