India recognised COVID threat early, pursued scientific evidence-based approach: Harsh Vardhan

COVID-19 cases in India are steily coming down while caselo of infection in many parts of world is experiencing a second or even a third peak, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday asserting government "recognised threat early and pursued a scientific evidence-based approach".

He me se remarks at a virtual event of Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

me of event was "Build Back Better: building resilient health infrastructure and supply chains", a health ministry statement said.

Speaking on COVID trajectory in India, Vardhan said, "It has been almost one year since outbreak of COVID-19. While caselo infection in many parts of world is decreasing, many ors are experiencing a second or even a third peak.

Fortunately, in India, cases are steily coming down. We recognised threat early and pursued a scientific evidence based approach."

Highlighting steps taken by India to handle unprecedented humanitarian crisis, he stated, "Our first step was to expand our present capacities swiftly, wher it was for testing, PPE production, or hospital beds. We looked at problem in greater granularity and scaled up at an incredible pace."

"We also repurposed our capacities from multiple research disciplines across a wide range of public and private institutions. We repurposed defence research capacities for quickly erecting hospitals with enhanced capacity. From being an importer of PPEs before pandemic, India is w a net exporter of PPEs. We scaled up our testing capacity from a few hundred tests per day to a million tests per day. nimbleness that Indian research institutions have shown needs to be t only preserved but also encourd," he was quoted as saying in statement.

Vardhan also detailed on how effective communication strategy has been a cornerstone of approach. "We have used every possible means to mobilise everyone. prime minister himself has led this effort and dressed citizens directly. He has also emphasised spirit of cooperative federalism, wherein state and central governments worked hand in hand at each st," he said.

Emphasising upon multipronged approach to combat COVID, minister said, "Apart from this, we recognised early that while health sector has to be at forefront of combating COVID-19, it requires involvement of all of government functions - disaster manment, industry, civil aviation, shipping, pharmaceuticals, and environment and so on. We invated early on to establish an institutional platform in form of 'empowered groups' to bring toger se multi-sectoral functions in a cohesive manner."

He also commented, "We me invative use of a range of digital techlogies to track, monitor and control disease. In a country like India - with a large digital divide - we h to ensure that we use a judicious mix of different techlogies so that one is left behind."

Vardhan said, "I believe that some of good practices that have been developed in many countries of world during pandemic need to be institutionalised. We do t need to reinvent se in future. At same time, we have to think about how we could have done this better. We need a deeper conversation about what 'building back better' in context of public health infrastructure would mean!"

Reiterating that disaster resilience is an essential area of common interest globally, he stated, "Over past deces, India and nations of world have seen unprecedented progress in ecomic and human development. However, as COVID-19 has shown, all of this table progress is at risk if we do t make our systems resilient. key lesson from pandemic is that principles of resilience must be integral to our quest for ecomic growth as individual nations and international community. Our lives and livelihoods may very well depend on it. In doing so, we have to make our systems resilient to t only pandemics but all s of risks, including those emerging from effects of climate change."

He ded, "We must forge a global dialogue and chart directions for a resilient future for humanity at large. This would be most worthy tribute to our people - particularly health workers, emergency responders, frontline workers - who have put world's safety before ir own personal safety." 

(Photo Credit: Twitter/drharshvardhan)