New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday said that India sent medicines to 150 countries during covid crisis without increasing the price and compromising on the quality of the medicines. Minister was speaking at the inauguration of the International Symposium on Health Technology Assessment in Delhi on Friday (March 10). The Union Health Minister said,
During the Covid crisis, India sent medicines to 150 countries without increasing price and compromising on the quality.
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The Deputy Chairman had said that India facilitated the evacuation of stranded foreign nationals from different parts of India to around 123 countries. Mr. Mandaviya said that India fulfils 65 per cent of the world’s vaccine requirement. He informed,
Today, if there is any country in the world which is providing affordable medicines, then it’s India.
Mr. Harivansh further added that India took an exclusive initiative “Vaccine Maitri” to supply COVID-19 Made-in-India vaccines to various countries across the world. Under this initiative, as of the first week of December 2022, India has supplied more than 282 million vaccine doses of COVID-19 to 101 countries and two UN entities. He further said,
Since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in India, we followed a ‘whole of Government’ and ‘whole of society approach’. We took several measures for containing the spread of the virus, addressing major gaps in the availability of life-saving healthcare facilities, shoring up livelihoods and restoring normalcy in the areas such as education and employment.
On the steps taken by the Indian government during the COVID-19 pandemic, he had said,
As regards enacting relevant legislations, the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 was amended by Parliament to provide for adequate safety and protection of healthcare personnel handling patients and the epidemic. The Essential Commodities Act, of 1955 was amended to ensure that there are no shortages of foodgrains and also to keep the commodity prices under check during a pandemic. These changes helped to ensure food security to vulnerable sections of the country through the Public Distribution System.
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NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
