Remarks by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the Opening Session of Second Global COVID Virtual Summit

President Biden

Vice President Haris

Excellencies,

Namaskar!

The Covid pandemic continues to disrupt lives, supply chains, and tests the resilience of open societies. In India, we adopted a people-centric strategy against the pandemic. We have made the highest ever allocation to our annual healthcare budget.

Our vaccination programme is the largest in the world. We have fully vaccinated almost 90 percent of the adult population, and more than 50 million children. India manufactures four WHO approved vaccines and has the capacity to produce five billion doses this year.

We supplied over 200 million doses to 98 countries, bilaterally and through COVAX. India has developed low-cost COVID mitigation technologies for testing, treating and data management. We have offered these capabilities to other countries.

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 neighborhood.

In India, we extensively used our traditional medicines to supplement our fight against COVID and to boost immunity, saving countless lives.

Last month, we laid the foundation of ”WHO Centre for Traditional Medicine” in India, with an aim to make this age-old knowledge available to the World.

Excellencies,

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.

WTO rules, particularly TRIPS need to be more flexible. WHO must be reformed and strengthened to build a more resilient global health security architecture.

We also call for stream-lining WHO’s approval process for vaccines and therapeutics to keep supply chains stable and predictable. As a responsible member of the global community, India is ready to play a key role in these efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

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