Highlights of APACPH 2020 Virtual Conference - Day 1

. Furthermore, he enlisted the success factor to strong leadership, strong well-resourced and inclusive medical and public health, consistent and transparent communication, adaptive administrative system, previous experience during SARS and holistic approach to deal with the COVID-19. He also pointed to areas of improvement such as detection, protecting health workers and patients, strengthened workforce, developing world-class quarantine and enhanced coordination. Regarding Taiwan, Dr Ya-Wen Betty Chiu, Taipei Medical University, shared lessons learned from Taiwan in six key factors such as SARS experience, high alert and timely response, risk communication and information transparency, resource allocation, transmission prevention and good etiquette of citizens. She also emphasized on the quality leadership in dealing with the COVID-19 response and its importance. Finally, she acknowledged the dimension of the issue of COVID-19 and urged for more public health measures. For Hong Kong, Assistant Professor Dr Wu Peng, University of Hong Kong also shared the lesson learned and the way forward by stressing on the major public health measures to tackle the COVID-19 such as restriction to essential travel to decrease the transmission, physical distancing, working from home, restricting mass gathering, use of face masks and test and trace cases. The continuous importation of infections and continuation of border control measures also necessary. The digital innovation for COVID-19 was the last session from Oslo University, University of Colombo and WHO Northern European Region in developing dHIS2 platform as the surveillance innovation. The presentations illustrated adoption process and results when applied in Africa, Asia and Scandinavian countries. The first day of the conference had virtual abstract presentations as well. The abstracts are available on www.slma.lk/abstracts