COVID-19 could be opportunity for India to speed up Ayushman Bharat: WHO chief

COVID-19 pandemic, which has presented challenges for several nations, could be an “opportunity” for India to speed up health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat, especially with a focus on primary healthcare, WHO chief Tedros ham Ghebreyesus has said.

WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus was responding to a question on COVID-19 situation in India, where number of coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly. India went past Italy on Friday to become sixth worst-hit nation by COVID-19 pandemic. India saw a record single-day jump of 9,887 coronavirus cases and 294 deaths on Saturday, pushing nationwide infection tally to 2,36,657 and death toll to 6,642, according to health ministry.

"Of course COVID is very unfortunate and it's challenging for many nations but we need to look for opportunities too. For instance for India, this could be an opportunity to speed up Ayushman Bharat, especially with a focus on primary health care. I kw re is a very strong commitment from government to speed up implementation of Ayushman Bharat and with primary healthcare and community engment, I think we can really turn tide,” Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing in Geneva on Friday.

Ayushman Bharat is world’s largest health insurance scheme and was launched by Narendra Modi government in 2018. Last month, Modi h said that number of people who have benefited from scheme crossed one crore-mark. scheme aims to cover more than 500 million beneficiaries and provide cover of Rs 500,000 per family per year. Referring to Ayushman Bharat scheme, Ghebreyesus ded that “using and speeding up what has started could actually help in India and that's what WHO was very appreciative by way when Ayushman Bharat started. And this could be a very good opportunity actually to test that and speed up and use it to really fight this pandemic.”   

(Im Credits: AFP)