India has co-sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution that called for a fair, transparent and equitable access to essential medical supplies and any future vaccines developed to fight COVID-19 that has claimed over 177,000 lives and infected more than 2.5 million people.
The 193-Member General Assembly adopted the Mexico-drafted resolution ‘International cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to face COVID-19’ by consensus on Monday. Pakistan was among the small minority of nations that did not sponsor the resolution.
India was among the 179 nations co-sponsoring the resolution that called for ensuring “fair, transparent, equitable, efficient and timely access to and distribution of preventive tools, laboratory testing, reagents and supporting materials, essential medical supplies, new diagnostics, drugs and future COVID-19 vaccines” to all nations, particular developing countries. “India has proactively engaged in supporting global availability of medicines and drugs by means of international cooperation and development partnerships. Also, we are facilitating the sourcing of global supplies of multilateral agencies such as UNICEF in the face of COVID-19. We were therefore glad to co-sponsor this important initiative,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said.
India has been at the forefront of sending essential medical supplies and medicines such as anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to several nations, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saying he “salutes” nations like India that are helping other countries in their fight against the devastating pandemic. A number of countries, including the US, Mauritius and Seychelles have already received the drug. In its neighborhood, India is sending the drug to Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, The Maldives, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Pakistan said it has some reservations on the resolution drafted by Mexico.
China should come forward with “real evidence” and tell the world about where and how the deadly coronavirus developed, US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien has said. China has come under increasing global pressure over lack of transparency in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far infected over 2.5 million people and claimed more than 170,000 lives across the world. Ever since the virus came to light in Wuhan in December last year, speculation has been rife on whether the viral strain originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or from its nearby Huanan Seafood Market. “The burden’s really on the Chinese to come forward with real evidence about where this virus developed,” O’Brien said on Tuesday in an interview with Hugh Hewitt.
The World Health Organization has become a tool of the “Chinese propaganda”, the Trump administration has alleged, asserting that the global health agency has lost all its credibility during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. US President Donald Trump recently announced he would put a hold on America’s funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing the UN health body of becoming “China-centric” during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The United States is the largest contributor to the Geneva-headquartered world body.
Amid opposition charges, the Kerala government has constituted a two-member committee to examine whether the privacy of personal and sensitive data of COVID-19 patients from the state has been protected under an agreement entered by it with a US-based IT firm. The panel headed by former Special IT Secretary M Madhavan Nambiar and former health secretary Rajeev Sadanandan, will also ascertain whether adequate procedures were followed while finalising the arrangements with the private company, Sprinklr.
India extending the nationwide lockdown by nearly three more weeks to May 3 is unlikely to stem the surge in coronavirus infections and economic and humanitarian crisis will exacerbate due to slow response by the government so far, according to Fitch Solutions. “We at Fitch Solutions have revised down our forecast for India’s FY2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021) real GDP growth to 1.8 per cent, from 4.6 per cent previously,” it said in a note on Wednesday. “The key drivers behind our revision is slow and weak fiscal response and a worsening of the COVID-19 outbreak domestically, which we expect to cause both private consumption and investments to contract,” Fitch Solutions said.
