India to focus on health emergency prevention, digital health during G20 Presidency

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday said that India is going to focus on health emergencies prevention, preparedness, and response through a ‘One Health’ approach and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance during its G20 Presidency.

The first Health Working Group (HWG) meeting will be held from January 18-20 at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The second HWG meeting will take place from April 17-19 in Goa, the third from June 4-6 in Hyderabad and the fourth HWG meeting and G20 Health Ministerial Meeting will take place from August 17-19 in Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

Among others, India’s G 20 Presidency health priorities will include Strengthening Cooperation in Pharmaceutical Sector which includes access, availability and affordable medical countermeasures and Digital Health Innovation and Solutions emphasising on Universal Health Coverage and Improving Health Services Delivery.

“India’s G20 Presidency health priorities will be focussed on health emergencies prevention, preparedness, and response. The country will aim to play a major role in converging discussions in multiple forums for Global Health Architecture and act as an enabler for reducing fragmentation and duplication”, said Mandaviya.

India will focus on strengthening cooperation in the pharmaceutical sector by creating a permanent medical countermeasure platform and ensuring the availability of safe, quality, and affordable diagnostic vaccines and therapeutics across countries.

India will also focus during the G20 Presidency on the agenda to promote distributed manufacturing of vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics globally to manage future health emergencies, he said. India has exported drugs and vaccines to over 150 countries globally during the pandemic. The medical countermeasures availability is being linked to national security and India can ensure playing a proactive role in ensuring health security for Global South and low and low-middle income countries.

The use of Digital Health solutions such as Co-WIN, Telemedicine and the COVID-19 India platform highlighted the advantages of data-driven insights. The use of technology for accessibility, ease of availability, and affordability in health service delivery will be the main agenda of Digital Health during the presidency.