India's contribution will be critical to fighting COVID: Vardhan

India's contribution will be critical to fighting COVID-19, especially when it comes to making vaccines for whole world, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Wednesday, assuring that government has accorded top-most priority to research and manufacturing to ensure that vaccine reaches last person.He me remarks while virtually dressing World Bank-IMF annual meeting on "Unleashing South Asian Century through Human Capital for All" and "Investing in COVID-19 Vaccines and Primary Healthcare Delivery System".

He said that National Expert Group on Vaccine ministration is working on all aspects, besides designing invative approaches to distribute vaccines in rural and remote regions, Health Ministry said in its statement.

health minister said present research nda for COVID-19 has been to provide an affordable vaccine as well as to ensure its equitable distribution.Currently, three Indian pharma companies in partnership with foreign or domestic research institutes are expediting trials of vaccine, statement said. biggest benefit that India has is that it has a robust immunization program in place and it is also implementing largest immunization program of world, with nearly 27 million newborns targeted annually, minister said.

"We have an established infrastructure for supply, stor and delivery of vaccines to last mile under our Universal Immunization Program as part of which we are ministering around 600 million doses to children every year. 

strength of se experiences in vaccination landscape, our best practices and robustness of our health delivery system will be leverd and augmented using a strong IT backbone to ensure that this humongous national mission of vaccinating identified priority groups with COVID-19 vaccine is achieved in a timely manner. Indian government will lever an integrated IT platform e-Vin (electronic Vaccine Intelligent Network) for managing vaccine distribution, Vardhan said.

He re-affirmed commitment of Indian government and assured that it has accorded top-most priority to research and manufacturing to ensure that vaccine reaches last person.

India story has always been very inspiring as we have me huge strides in improving health of our people in last two deces. And w, India's contribution will be critical to fighting COVID-19, especially when it comes to making vaccines at large scale for whole world," minister was quoted as saying in statement. 

  Emphasizing India's role during pandemic, Vardhan said, " inclusiveness of India's response has led us to man pandemic currently.

COVID pandemic has created disruption in rmal life but has also provided a steep learning curve for all of us to be more resilient and prepared for future.

se efforts have been a result of commitment from all stakeholders. 

India has been following a pre-emptive, proactive, and gred response characterised by a "Whole of Society, Whole of Government" approach to man challenges posed by global pandemic, he said.

Lauding support of private sector in India's COVID-19 manment, he stated that its invation, ability and agility has supported efforts to fight coronavirus in a big way.

PPEs, N95 masks, oxygen, ventilators and diagstic tests kits were developed at a jet pace to ensure self-sufficiency. Medical infrastructure saw an exponential growth, from having one lab in March, 2020 to around 2,000 laboratories as on date with nearly half of labs from private sector. same is true for dedicated ICU facilities and isolation centers, he said.

pandemic has taught us that preparedness costs only a fraction of its impact, but returns on investment are exponential,he said.

Vardhan said that due to unprecedented challenges faced by world on account of pandemic, India is making use of Information Techlogy in virtually every aspect of COVID manment.

AarogyaSetu app and ITIHAS, a cellular-based tracking techlogy has been used for surveillance and identification of potential clusters, RT-PCR app for testing, facility application for managing information on mitted patients and all have been integrated with a single COVID portal, he said.

AarogyaSetu App is presently being used by more than 170 million Indians making it one of most downloed apps in world. A web-based tele-consultation service has been initiated to enable n-COVID-19 healthcare services. So far, more than 0.60 million tele-consultations have been conducted and more people are getting on-board, he said.

Union health minister spoke at length about India's preparedness to deal with pandemics and commitment to ensure affordable healthcare delivery to all. 

We rolled out a special ecomic and comprehensive pack of 272 US Billion Dollars - equivalent to 10 per cent of India's GDP under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (Self Reliance India Programme) which includes a component of increasing investments in public health and health reforms to prepare India for future pandemics.

(IM CREDITS:PTI)