India looks forward to pursue unified efforts with G20 member countries in mitigation of COVID-19: Harsh Vardhan.

India yesterday reiterated support to global health agenda and said it looks forward towards working with G20 member countries to pursue unified efforts towards mitigation of COVID-19. 

In his statement in G20 meeting of Health Ministers, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said, India as a global leader in pharmaceuticals, has stepped to make sure supplies of drugs like Hydroxychloroquine to countries around the world. 

He said, India is working with global partners to ensure that effective drugs and vaccines can be developed, and made available as soon as possible. The Minister said the scale of impact of COVID-19 is unprecedented and therefore calls for cooperation between nations to attain normalcy.

 

The Health Minister said India has



successfully tackled public health emergencies in the past as well and this time, the hallmark of its approach has been fivefold. He said the government is stressing on maintaining a continuous situation awareness, pre-emptive and proactive approach, graded response, inter-sectoral coordination and creating people's movement. 

Dr Harsh Vardhan highlighted that the country started surveillance of flights from COVID-19 affected countries twelve days before it had its first COVID-19 case on the 30th of January. 

The Minister pointed out that the results of the lockdown are realized when case doubling rate which was about 3.4 days on the 17th of March, dropped to 4.4 days by the 25th of March, and is currently about 7.4 days.