Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday virtually addressed the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva. While congratulating the organisation for “serving the world for 75 years”, Modi said the pandemic showed there was a need for greater collaboration and health equity.
He mentioned that India showed its commitment towards international cooperation during the pandemic by shipping 300 million vaccine doses to over 100 countries, many from the Global South. He said, “I am sure that supporting equal access to resources will be a top priority for the WHO in the coming years.”
The PM’s call for equity in healthcare comes in the backdrop of India’s G20 presidency where one of the priority areas is creating a global network for manufacturing medical countermeasures – diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines – so that everyone has access to it.
Earlier this month, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in his address at the G7 meeting in Japan said that only 34% of the populations in low and middle income countries have access to such medical countermeasures as compared to 73% in high income countries.
