Modi: Will share low-cost Covid treatment plan with neighbours

New Delhi, May 12

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today announced at the global Covid meet helmed by the US that India would extend its expertise of low-cost Covid response to neighbouring countries.

Pitches for reforms in WHO

In India, we adopted a people-centric strategy against the Covid-19 pandemic. The WHO must be reformed and strengthened to build a more resilient global health security architecture. — Narendra Modi, PM

Pointing out that India has mastered the low- cost Covid mitigation techniques for testing, treating and data management, PM Modi said, “We have offered these capabilities to other countries and will extend this network to countries in the neighbourhood.”

The lessons from two years of the pandemic are clear — a coordinated global response is required to combat future health emergencies. For this, he, along with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, advocated that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules should be relaxed to enable cheaper manufacturing of vaccines and therapeutics in developing countries.

PM Modi also sought a reformed and strengthened World Health Organisation (WHO) to build a resilient global health security architecture. He also raised questions about the WHO’s approval process for vaccines and sought its streamlining to keep supply chains stable and predictable. “India is ready to play a key role in this effort,” he added.