PM Modi calls for cooperation on medical emergencies
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday addressed a workshop on Covid Management with 10 neighboring countries including those in the extended neighbourhood. Prime Minister said that this epidemic has taught us the important lesson of cooperation and solidarity. He called for further strengthening cooperation between South Asian and Indian Ocean island states, saying that the regional solidarity shown during the Covid epidemic has proved that such cooperation is possible.
"If the 21st century is to be the Asian century, it can not be so without greater integration among the countries of South Asia and the Indian Ocean islands," he said at a workshop on "COVID-19 Management: Experience, Good Practices and Way Forward".
Prime Minister Modi called for introducing some special schemes for mutual help in times of Covid crisis. He suggested a special visa scheme for the deployment of doctors and nurses during emergency health conditions in the Asian region. He also said that if we focus on what unites us, our region can not only overcome the corona epidemic but also other challenges.
He also wondered if civil aviation ministries of these countries coordinate a regional air ambulance agreement for medical contingencies.
"Can we create a regional platform for collating, compiling and studying data about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines among our populations? Can we similarly create a regional network for promoting technology-assisted epidemiology, for preventing future pandemics?" Modi said.
Modi asked if these countries can share their successful public health policies and schemes beyond COVID-19 and offered Ayushman Bharat, a health insurance cover for the poor, and Jan Arogya scheme, under which medicines are sold at affordable rates, as case studies from India for its friends in the region.
"Such collaboration can become the pathway for greater regional cooperation among us in other areas too. After all, we share so many common challenges -climate change, natural disasters, poverty, illiteracy, and social and gender imbalances. But we also share the power of centuries' old cultural and people-to-people linkages," he said.
