Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) must be rebuilt and reinforced to build a more pliable global health security architecture, mentioning the fact that India fully vaccinated almost 90% of its adult population and more than 50 million of its children. During the Covid-19 second global virtual summit which was organized by the US president Joe Biden, Modi also called for making the World Trade Organisation rules, especially the Trade-related facets of Intellectual Property Rights, more resilient.
Also, streamlining WHO’s approval process for vaccines and therapeutics to keep supply chains stable and predictable was proposed by Modi. “The Covid pandemic progresses to ruins lives, and supply chains and tests the resilience of open societies. In India, we adopted a people-centric set of tactics against the pandemic. We have made the highest ever granting to our annual healthcare budget. Our vaccination program is the largest in the world. India manufactures 4 authorized vaccines and has the capacity to generate 5 billion doses in 2022. We distributed over 200 million doses to 98 countries, respectively, and through COVAX. India had enhanced inexpensive COVID easing technologies for testing, treating, and data management. We have provided these abilities to other nations”, said the Prime Minister.
“Genomics network in India has promoted eloquently to the global database on the virus. I am glad to share that we will stretch this network to countries in our neighborhood. In our country, we exclusively used our traditional medicines to amplify our fight against COVID and to strengthen immunity, saving multiple lives. We laid the foundation of the WHO Centre for traditional medicine in India last month with a goal to make this age-old knowledge available to the world”, he added.
Narendra Modi concluded his speech, saying, there was a need for building a durable global supply chain and facilitating impartial access to vaccines and medicines. It is clear that a coordinated global response is essential to tackle future health predicaments.