Coping with continuing pandemic: Role of Social Psychiatry Proposal from the World Association of Social Psychiatry (WASP)

Covid-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented crisis seen by the humanity in the last two years with a magnitude no less than the two world wars. Globally, more than 260 million cases have been reported and more than 5 million deaths have been attributed to Covid-19 till the end of November 2021. Despite introduction of the vaccine nearly a year ago, though there has been a big hope of controlling the pandemic, there have been repeated rises in infections due to the mutations in virus, like the coming of Delta, Delta plus and Omicron variants, which are increasingly infectious. There have already been two waves of the pandemic with the second wave being very lethal in India. The pandemic had both direct as well as indirect effects on mental health of the population across allover the world. Many countries had to resort to lockdowns to control the spread of infection, which had serious economic consequences, adding to the mental and social distress. Other infection control measures like quarantine and social isolation, and inability of the persons with existing mental illnesses to access treatment further added to the problem. Introduction of vaccine brought some hope, but it has been a great challenge to cover such a huge population with vaccine alongwith dealing with vaccine hesitancy. This symposium being proposed by the World Association of Social Psychiatry. The symposium will assess the current situation with focus on psychosocial aspects, social psychiatry approach used to deal with the mental health issues, challenges ahead and the lessons learnt to deal with any future challenges of similar nature. Chair: Rachid Bennegadi, President, WASP; Gautam Saha, President, IPS Proposer: Rakesh K Chadda Current situation - Roy Abraham Kallivayalil Social psychiatry approach - Debasish Basu Challenges ahead- Ramarao Gogineni Lessons learnt - Rakesh K Chadda