Expressing readiness to work together with Australia in healthcare, Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday said that in India, this sector is expected to achieve the $275 billion mark by 2030.
In a digital interaction with his Australian counterpart Gregory Andrew Hunt to discuss bilateral health co-operation, he noted that “while Australia has one of the best healthcare systems of the developed world, healthcare in India is one of the fastest-growing sectors expected to hit a $275 billion mark in the next 10 years”.
“India’s domestic demand is expected to engine the growth regardless of any turbulence in the global economy. India also offers vast opportunities in R&D and medical tourism,” he said.
Harsh Vardhan also noted that India’s traditional holistic medical systems like Ayurveda and yoga can help Australia curb obesity and related diseases.
Elaborating on “health as a social movement” approach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said India’s universal healthcare coverage (under Ayushman Bharat) covers a massive 100 million families and that 10 million individuals have benefitted in the last year alone.
“India is committed to eliminating TB by the year 2025 and has also undertaken efforts for mass screening of non-communicable diseases like hypertension, cancer of breast, lung, throat and mouth.
“India has also made strides in implementing the Digital Health Blueprint to modernise the health sector and enable streamlined delivery of services to the last citizen; affordable medicines that treat cancer and cardio-vascular ailments and cardiac implants are made available to the poorest of the poor under the (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment (AMRIT) programme,” Harsh Vardhan said.
He also said that India’s drug manufacturers have also enabled the country to supply hydroxychloroquine to 140 countries.
Hunt stated that Australia’s Universal Telemedicine has helped tackle 19 million cases so far.
Acknowledging India’s huge role in supplying inexpensive generic drugs supplying 60 per cent of the world’s medicine, he expanded on how India could help Australia in researching new medicines for rare diseases using genomics and stem cell technology.
Both the Health Ministers agreed to continue to jointly work in the area of health and other common interests.
India and Australia had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on co-operation in the field of health and medicine on April 10, 2017. Covering areas like the management of communicable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, mental health and non-communicable diseases, antimicrobial resistance, regulation of pharmaceuticals, vaccines and medical devices and digitisation of health infrastructure, the MoU also covers response to public health emergencies like the present Covid pandemic.
Recovery rate improves
The Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 86 per cent of the total number of coronavirus cases in the country are confined to 10 states, adding that the fatality rate has come down, while the recovery rate has improved.
India is currently the third-worst affected country in the world with 906,752 coronavirus cases as on Tuesday.
“Eighty-six per cent of the total cases are confined to 10 states. Two of these account for 50 per cent of the cases — Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu — while eight other states have 36 per cent cases,” said Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Highlighting another important aspect, Bhushan said that the national fatality rate is 2.6 per cent, which is significantly lower than the global average. He said that assistance is being given to the states with a high fatality rate through teleconsultation.
“We have started a special intervention. On Tuesday and Friday, a group of doctors from AIIMS engage with the ICU doctors of treating hospitals in other states through teleconsultation and try to resolve the problems that they are facing in saving critically ill patients,” he said.
The official said that there are 20 states whose recovery rate is more than the national average of 63 per cent. Of these, Tripura, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Ladakh have a recovery rate of more than 70 per cent.
“From May 2 to May 30, there were more active cases. Now, the recovered cases are 1.8 times more than the active ones,” Bhushan said, building further on his argument.
The Health Ministry official claimed that the country is conducting enough tests. “WHO says if you are testing 140 people per day, per 10 lakh, it would be indicative of comprehensive testing. There are 22 states which are doing this,” he said.
Bhushan further said that the number of labs has increased. At the start of the pandemic, the country had 101 labs, but now it has 1,206 labs and 280 stations for rapid antigen tests.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has given clearance to two indigenous vaccine candidates for human trials. The study is being done on 1,000 volunteers each at different sites.
“The vaccines have undergone successful toxicity studies in rats, mice and rabbits. Data were submitted to DCGI following which both these got clearance to start early phase human trials this month,” said ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava.
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