New Delhi, March 21 India presented an exemplary model of Covid management with the Centre and states working in unison under a federal democracy, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Monday.
'Jan Andolan' and 'Jan Bhagidari' were key pillars of India's Covid management strategy, he said.
"India's Covid management is a story of leadership, innovation, dedication, partnership, sharing and leveraging technology," said Mandaviya while addressing a session at 'Aksha – Lessons from India', an event organised by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) where representatives from development partners such as WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, USAID, ADB and BMGF were present.
The event was organised to share the experiences and best practices from India's Covid management and vaccination journey.
Talking about India's vaccination journey, Mandaviya said that several studies had made ill-informed predictions and assumptions on the impact of the pandemic in India, but India's political leadership took decisive actions at crucial junctures in a strategic manner by learning from and amalgamating the best global practices with its own approach to manage the pandemic.
Mandaviya also appreciated the contribution of healthcare workers in the fight against the pandemic.
On the government's efforts in controlling the pandemic, Mandaviya said that it was a "joint effort by multitude stakeholders like NGOs, CSOs, industry, development partners etc."
He also underscored the fact that "despite the huge diversity of geography and population, India demonstrated how a huge vaccination drive can be mounted at scale".
Mandaviya also stated that in keeping with Indian ethos and tradition, the country supplied Covid vaccines to the world "even before our own vaccine requirement was fully met".
He added that "we did not exhibit any arrogant behaviour but shared what India produced. We have provided medicines such as HCQ to many countries. We did not compromise on quality or bargain with the price".
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that the Union government acted on a proactive mode since the onset of the pandemic to address the various challenges of vaccine roll-out across the country, vaccine production as well as vaccine hesitancy among the people.
He highlighted that India has already covered 96 per cent of the 15+ population with the first dose of the vaccine.
"India has made a mark in the world in terms of vaccine production and vaccine delivery," said ICMR Chief Balram Bhargava.
Through a presentation, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, pointed out that India undertook a scientific approach for the management of Covid.
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