New Delhi Speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare said that India looks forward to supporting Africa in closing the vaccine gap and offers to assist African countries in enhancing their research and development capacity. Is. At the Congress Center in Davos on Wednesday.
Mandaviya was speaking at the International Forum on ‘Unlocking the Power of Digital Health’ and ‘Closing the Vaccine Gap’ sessions.
India would like to further support and strengthen its existing ties with Africa. India offers to assist African countries in enhancing research and development capacity on medical countermeasures. India wants to extend its support to Africa in the journey from vaccine availability to immunization, focusing on implementation based on India’s experience of immunization with 96 per cent of the population with the first dose and 86 per cent with both doses. India also provided its CO-WIN platform to the world as a global public good.
“The CoWIN platform monitors name-based immunization and the administration of over 1.92 billion vaccination doses, including beneficiary registration, AEFI monitoring and a QR code based digital digital certificate. India has promoted the digital health agenda globally as Chair in the Global Digital Health Partnership. It was India that took forward the Digital Health Resolution at the WHO to prioritize the global framework for digital health. We have offered Co-Win as a digital public good to assist other countries in their vaccination efforts.”
Digital health is a great equalizer and enabler to support universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals and can help ensure access and affordability of healthcare delivery.
India has successfully screened more than 80 million citizens for diabetes, hypertension and cancer through digital means, creating India’s population profile.
Meanwhile, telemedicine platform e-Sanjeevani has benefited over 390 million beneficiaries through video consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it the largest such platform in the world.
“India is creating a national framework for digital health in India. Under the Ayushman Bharat (Long Live India) digital mission, India has ushered in the digital transformation of healthcare in India. The focus is on creating a longitudinal electronic health record for over 1.3 billion people of India. We have already issued over 220 million unique health IDs with the Health Facilities and Provider Registry. India has already used digital health interventions for its national program management.
The Reproductive and Child Healthcare IT platform tracks over 120 million pregnant women for their check-ups, delivery planning and vaccination of over 90 million babies. The Health Management Information System regularly collates data regarding health programs from over 200,000 health facilities,” the minister said.
With digital health interventions on the rise in India, the central government aims to take medical services to the last mile to ensure equitable healthcare delivery.
“With technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 5G, nanotech, we need to provide a technology-enabled healthcare service that is flexible, reliable and accessible to the last mile,” the minister said.