Health Minister Harsh Vardhan to represent India at WHO's 73rd World Health Assembly

World Health Assembly, organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is set to commence on Monday, May 18 and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan will be representing India at the two-day meet.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO has announced that the 73rd World Health Assembly will be held virtually. The meeting will be centred on the impact of Coronavirus and will witness the participation of all 194 WHO member states and observers. The agenda of the meeting has been limited to two days and will conclude on May 19. 

Coronavirus, which was first reported ins China's Wuhan city has infected 4.6 million people worldwide so far, including over 312,000 deaths.

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What is the WHA 2020?

The WHA is the World Health Organization (WHO)’s plenary body whose member states approve the organization’s budget, fill vacancies in its executive board, and vote on agenda items, as per reports. The two-day meeting will address a resolution, proposed by the EU to jointly develop affordable diagnostics, medicines, and vaccines for Covid-19. The Assembly is also set to vote on whether Taiwan should be invited to join as a WHO member amid its excellent COVID-19 response, in spite of China's strong opposition as it claims Taiwan as its territory- under the one-China policy.

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The Coronavirus crisis

First detected in Wuhan in December 2019, COVID-19- the novel coronavirus has affected nearly 160 countries in the world. As there is no vaccine or specific antiviral medicine to deal to treat COVID-19, countries have been grappling with all possible mechanisms to contain its scope. So far, China, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Iran, the US, France, UK, India have witnessed the most number of confirmed cases.  With the US as the 'epicentre', Coronavirus has 4,745,453 cases globally with 313,747 deaths.

Meanwhile, India's count of coronavirus cases stands at 90,927, including 2,872 deaths and 34,109 discharged/migrated patients, according to the Union Health Ministry.

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