India bats for pandemic policy for economy at G-20 health group meet

While kick-starting the first G-20 Health Working Group meeting in Thiruvananthapuram under India’s presidency of G-20, Union Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said that managing pandemics should be a key part of India’s health policy due to the economic impact of such crises.

“COVID-19 pandemic will not be the last one and therefore, emergency preparedness is an overarching priority that requires building of resilient health systems across the world to protect people in the face of similar crises,” she said at the meeting.

Pointing to the need to respond together each time when such threats to global health emerge, Pawar said that it was essential to ally with emerging scientific evidence, diversify our capacities and capabilities and strengthen the early warning systems.

The junior health further said that emergency preparedness was no longer an initiative in isolation, but rather “an overarching priority” which “requires efforts to build resilient health systems horizontally and vertically across the world”.

“In an increasingly interconnected world we need to ensure that our communities are resilient and have equal opportunities to protect themselves in the face of a crisis. The principle of equity and equitable support must be non-negotiable in our pursuit for health security,” Union MoS for Health and Family Welfare said at the G-20 India Health Working Group meeting.

The first Health Working Group meeting under G-20 India Presidency is underway presently and will conclude on January 20. India assumed the presidency of the G-20 on December 1, 2022

Pawar said that during the two-day long meeting of the Working Health Group, the aim would be to “realign our politics and policies”. “We must invest collectively and the investment must start today,” she said.

“The G-20 countries have to collectively strive to evolve and present the world with a “harmonised blueprint for the fundamental architecture of global health scheme and health emergency management duly avoiding duplication and fragmentation,” she said.

“In effect, it involves states that speak to each other and supplement each other in safeguarding our well being and empowering our communities to deal with future health emergency risks. The viability of universal health coverage aided with digital innovation will be the key,” the minister said.

The Health Track of the G-20 India Presidency will comprise four Health Working Group (HWG) meetings and one Health Ministerial Meeting (HMM).

The meetings will be held in different locations across the country, including Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), Goa, Hyderabad (Telangana) and Gandhinagar (Gujarat), highlighting the Prime Minister’s call to action to showcase India’s rich and diverse cultures.