India and US should work together in areas of pandemic preparedness, clinical trials: Balram Bhargava

(Representative image: Reuters)

India and the US should work together in areas of pandemic preparedness and bilateral clinical trials, said Balram Bhargava, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research.

Speaking at the India Ideas Summit, organised by United States India Business Council, Bhargava said that bilateral clinical trials will be more cost effective and that the two countries can work in areas of capacity building for health and non-communicable diseases.

Commenting on the takeaways from the Covid-19 pandemic, Bhargava noted that the Indian government is taking the opportunity to develop the health care system in every way.

Bhargava further said the government is working very hard to tackle the pandemic. The country administered 920 million doses of vaccines and conducted 600 million COVID tests in 18 months.

"India has realised that there is a capability which is a latent capability, which has to be unleashed," Bhargava said.

He said that India and the US should utilise their collaboration for the benefit of the countries.

"We together can contribute in bringing new technologies at a lower cost and scaling it up and helping in capacity building and training people in the region together, so that it will benefit mankind as a whole," Bhargava said.

He also said that the government has realised health is a very important sector, and therefore Ayushman Bharath and National Digital Health Mission have been launched.

Ayushman Bharat and National Digital Health Mission are going to be huge opportunities for key players from the US to manufacture in India.

"Investment by US companies manufacturing medical devices and diagnostics in India will ensure that the entire Far East and the African market can be taken care of with low investment," said Bhargava.

Commenting on the recently launched National Digital Health Mission, Bhargava said maintaining digital health records of 1.4 billion population could be a challenge.

However, having managed a large amount of data through the Cowin app, India can handle large volumes of data, he observed.