Excellencies and Hon’ble Secretaries, Chair, distinguished participants and partners from the public and private sectors,
Good morning and thank you to the Confederation of Indian Industry Northern Regional Committee on Healthcare for the invitation to address this Regional Healthcare Summit, the theme of which I greatly appreciate: “Breakthrough solutions for the next decade”.
It was at the beginning of this decade – the 2020s – that the world learnt of a new coronavirus.
That virus – SARS-CoV-2 – has since upended our world, killing more than 4.7 million people globally and causing the greatest economic contraction since the Second World War.
Crises often accelerate pre-existing trends, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception – an observation I’m sure your deliberations will capture.
Today, in this inaugural session address, I will share WHO’s work in three policy areas in which significant breakthroughs have occurred, and which are the focus of this Summit:
First, supply chains, logistics and governance;
Second, technology and innovation, and;
Third, enhancing cooperation between healthcare verticals for efficient healthcare delivery.
I will then look at how the private sector can promote those breakthroughs, feeding into and complementing public sector efforts to build health system resilience, achieve universal health coverage (UHC), and accelerate progress towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
On supply chains and logistics, COVID-19 has created new levels of complexity in ensuring access for all to essential medical products.
At different times and in different phases of the pandemic, manufacturing has been disrupted, supply chains have been broken, and trade restrictions and export bans have been implemented.
In many countries, transport services have been suspended and limitations placed on peoples’ movement, with significant impact on access to essential medical supplies.
To help circumvent these and other challenges, in April 2020 the UN Crisis Management Team established the COVID-19 Supply Chain System.
The WHO-led platform has played a critical role in allocating and distributing quality-assured, pre-qualified products to countries in a coordinated and organized manner, based on one overriding principle – equity.
In the South-East Asia Region, WHO has identified three international warehousing locations in which supplies continue to be stockpiled, with the aim of minimizing delays in responding to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19-related emergencies.
Through the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, WHO and its partners have fast-tracked the development and equitable distribution of the tests, treatments and vaccines required to reduce mortality and severe disease globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries.
This is key to restoring full social and economic activity in the near-term and facilitating high-level control of COVID-19 disease in the medium-term.
An unprecedented number of people must be vaccinated against COVID-19, the achievement of which will be an immense manufacturing and logistical challenge.
Through systematic planning, robust supply chain management, and adaptive programme implementation – including through the private sector – India has now administered more than 860 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, a commendable feat.
Moving forward, WHO is committed to supporting all countries of the Region to strengthen local production capacity of a range of medical products – a breakthrough solution embedded in the Region’s Declaration on the Collective Response to COVID-19.
Amid the pandemic, countries have sought to maintain a continuous supply of generic pharmaceutical products – many of them made in India – which WHO has very much supported.
WHO has in recent months carried out a series of online workshops with the Indian pharmaceutical industry on current good manufacturing practices, with the aim of increasing access for all to safe, quality-assured medical products – an important component of our Flagship Priority on achieving UHC.
On technology and innovation, we see policy makers implementing a range of digitized solutions for health, with the dramatic uptake of new technologies in all countries of the Region.
Telehealth in particular has greatly expanded, but we have also seen an explosion in the use of mobile apps that provide a range of services, from patient diagnosis, to treatment adherence and monitoring.
Most Member States continue to implement an ambitious e-health strategy, in line with the WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025.
As countries integrate digital health strategies into national governance systems, WHO continues to call for broader cooperation at the system level, as required by the SDGs and WHO’s triple billion targets.
And we continue to call for strong legal safeguards that protect individual freedoms, as well as the rights of vulnerable populations.
The challenges associated with digital transformation are complex and interconnected, as are the solutions.
But overcoming them will drive immense progress in almost all areas of health.
India’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) – launched just last week – promises to do exactly that, providing a wide range of data, information and infrastructure services to help achieve UHC.
And it does so by leveraging open, interoperable, standards-based digital systems while ensuring the security, confidentiality and privacy of health-related personal information.
The ABDM aligns well with WHO’s Global Strategy on Digital Health, and if successfully implemented, will provide a win-win for health facilities, health providers, patients and the government.
Notably, India is producing a large number of so-called unicorns that are generating wealth for bright young people with ideas – one of India’s greatest strengths, and a significant opportunity.
It is imperative that India leverages its population and data, as well as its digital prowess and entrepreneurial spirit, to produce AI-based solutions for health care challenges in India and across the world, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Promoting cooperation between health care verticals for efficient healthcare delivery must be a key priority moving forward.
All countries of the Region – including India – continue to grapple with an array of challenges, not least unequal geographical access to health services, shortages of health workers and weak supply chains, all of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19.
To achieve UHC, countries of the Region must develop integrated, people-centered health systems that are resilient, and which can effectively prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters.
Such systems address frontline services and hospitals together.
They rely on effective referral systems, as well as strong gatekeeping mechanisms.
They require healthcare verticals and stakeholders to work in coordination and to share information, with the goal of maximizing efficiency.
They are the opposite of systems structured around individual diseases, and which focus on standard programmatic or institutional approaches.
At the core of integrated people-centred health systems are strong primary health care (PHC) services.
I put it to you: Strong PHC-oriented health systems are the breakthrough solution that together we must harness and apply over the coming decade – exactly what ministers of health from across the Region committed to doing through the recently issued “Declaration on COVID-19 and measures to build back better essential health services to achieve UHC and the health-related SDGs”.
In closing, I want to emphasize the critical role that India’s private sector can and must play in revolutionizing healthcare in India, and in supporting public sector efforts to build health system resilience and achieve UHC.
You are all aware: Private sector providers are a major source of health care in India.
Not only does the private sector produce a significant part of India’s health workforce, but it also acts as a global pharmacy, providing hundreds of millions of people in low- and middle-income countries globally access to quality generic medicines.
India’s private sector has so much to offer in so many areas of health.
You will have heard it said: The private sector must be mobilized in support of public goods and national priorities.
This is true.
But it is equally true that the private sector must mobilize of its own accord.
Because as COVID-19 has shown, access for all to quality health services, without financial hardship, is essential to achieving the healthier, more self-reliant, sustainable and secure India to which I am certain you are committed, and for which WHO will continue to provide its ongoing and unmitigated support.
I once again thank the Confederation of Indian Industry Northern Regional Committee on Healthcare for the invitation, and wish you an engaging, insightful and inspiring Healthcare Summit.
Thank you.