Harsh Vardhan hails India's fight against COVID; says 'we pursued evidence-based approach'

While addressing a virtual event by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Union Health and Family Welfare MInister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said that India had recognised the COVID-19 threat early and pursued a scientific evidence-based approach to combat the situation. Speaking further on "Building back better: building resilient health infrastructure and supply chains", the Union Minister said that India's COVID-19 case count has been steadily coming down. 

Dr Harsh Vardhan said, "It has been almost one year since the outbreak of COVID-19. While the caseload infection in many parts of the world is decreasing, many others are experiencing a second or even a third peak. Fortunately, in India, the cases are steadily coming down. We recognized the threat early and pursued a scientific evidence-based approach."

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Dr Harsh Vardhan: 'We looked at the problem in greater granularity'

Highlighting the steps taken by India to battle the unprecedented humanitarian crisis, Vardhan said that India's first step was to expand its present capacities swiftly, whether it was for testing, PPE production, or hospital beds. He also said, "We looked at the problem in greater granularity and scaled up at an incredible pace." India from being an importer of PPEs before the pandemic has now become a net exporter of PPEs, the Union Health Minister added. 

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Union Health and Family Welfare Minister said, "Some of the good practices that have been developed in many countries of the world during the pandemic need to be institutionalised."

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Stressing that disaster resilience is an essential area of common interest globally, Vardhan said that over the past decades India and other nations of the world have seen unprecedented progress in economic and human development. Pointing towards the Coronavirus pandemic, the Minister said that the pandemic has shown that all the notable progress made by different countries is at risk if they do not make their system resilient. "The key lesson from the pandemic is that the principles of resilience must be integral to our quest for economic growth as individual nations and the international community," he added. 

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(With ANI inputs)