Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the WHO must be reformed and strengthened while the rules of the World Trade Organisation must be made more flexible to build a more resilient global health security architecture to tackle future emergencies.
In his address at the Global Virtual Summit on Covid hosted by the US President Joe Biden on Thursday, the Prime Minister also said India calls for "streamlining WHO's approval process for vaccines and therapeutics to keep supply chains stable and predictable".
"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.
"WTO rules, particularly TRIPS, need to be more flexible. WHO must be reformed and strengthened to build a more resilient global health security architecture," he added.
The Prime Minister also assured the world leaders that India would continue to play an active role by sharing its low cost indigenous COVID mitigation technologies, vaccines and therapeutics with other countries.
He explained how India's genomics consortium has contributed significantly to the global database on the virus. "I am happy to share that we will extend this network to countries in our neighbourhood."
PM Modi also pointed out how India last month laid the foundation of the WHO Centre for Traditional Medicine in India to make this age-old knowledge available to the world.
India is working to extend its genomic surveillance consortium and is using traditional medicine extensively, he added.
The prime minister highlighted that India adopted a people-centric strategy against the pandemic.
"We made the highest ever allocation for our annual healthcare budget. Our vaccination program is the largest in the world. We have fully vaccinated almost 90 percent of the elderly population and more than 50 million children," he said.
