Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the Second Global COVID Virtual Summit on 12 May 2022. For the Global Summit, PM Modi was invited by the President of the U.S.A., Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Summit was planned to galvanise new actions to address the continuing challenges of the COVID pandemic and build a stronger and secure global health security infrastructure.
Prime Minister delivered his remarks in the Opening Session of the Summit on the theme ‘Preventing Pandemic Fatigue and Prioritizing Preparedness’. During delivering his remarks, Prime Minister put forth how India adopted a people-centric strategy to combat the pandemic and has made the highest ever allocation for its health budget this year. “It is clear that a coordinated global response is required to combat future health emergencies. We must build a resilient global supply chain and enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines,” PM Modi said. Prime Minister also stated that India is running the largest vaccination campaign in the world and has vaccinated approximately 90% of its adult population and more than fifty million children.
Prime Minister Modi also highlighted that “as a responsible member of the global community, India would continue to play an active role by sharing its low-cost indigenous COVID mitigation technologies, vaccines and therapeutics with other countries.” It is remarkable how India is working to enhance its “genomic surveillance consortium.”
During the COVID pandemic, India has used traditional medicine extensively and efficiently and has laid the foundation for a WHO Center for Traditional Medicine in India to make this knowledge available to the world, MEA’s Press Release reported. Prime Minister Modi also emphasised that “WTO rules, particularly TRIPS need to be more flexible. WHO must be reformed and strengthened to build a more resilient global health security architecture.”
Other participants in the summit included co-hosts of the event – Heads of State/Government of Belize in its capacity as Chair of CARICOM, Senegal as Chair of African Union, Indonesia as President of G20 and Germany as President of G7 respectively. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Director-General of the World Health Organization and other dignitaries also showed their presence.
Prime Minister Modi had also participated in the first Global COVID virtual Summit hosted by President Biden on 22 September 2021.
It is a great achievement that India is playing a central role in the ongoing global efforts to combat the pandemic by supplying safe and affordable vaccines and medicines, developing low-cost indigenous technologies to test and treat and capacity building for health care workers. India is also proactively engaged in multilateral fora to strengthen and reform the global health security architecture with WHO at its centre.