How the G20 declaration on health includes India’s three priorities and gives a digital push

Subject: IR

Section: Groupings

Introduction:

The G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, released during India’s G20 presidency, prominently features India’s three health priorities and emphasizes digital health innovation.

Three Priorities for India’s G20 Presidency:

India’s priorities aimed to address the economic and social disruptions caused by COVID-19 and prevent future losses.
The priorities include:
- Building resilient systems for health emergency prevention, preparedness, and response.
- Strengthening pharmaceutical cooperation to ensure equitable availability of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics during pandemics.
- Creating a platform for sharing digital health innovations and solutions, such as CoWIN and e-Sanjeevani, to achieve universal health coverage.

Digital Health Programme:

India launched the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) under the World Health Organization (WHO) to share scalable digital health solutions.
GIDH comprises four main pillars:
- An investment tracker
- A repository of digital health solutions
- Knowledge sharing for implementation
- Monitoring country-specific needs
$200 million fund proposal lacked consensus, but non-profits pledged support.
India provided digital platforms (CoWIN, e-Sanjeevani, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission) as global public goods.
Aimed at preventing uncoordinated proliferation of similar initiatives.

Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission:

A World Bank report recognized its efforts to bridge health information gaps and connect health services.
As of August 2023, 44.2 crore unique IDs have been created, and 110 digital health services have been integrated into the mission.
Concerns persist regarding data protection and privacy in the mission.

Interim Medical Countermeasure Platform:

No consensus on a permanent platform for equitable access.
Proposal for an interim platform.
Interim platform’s purpose: Support research and manufacturing.
Temporary measure until a legally binding pandemic treaty is established.
Concerns:
- Opposition driven by G7’s patent dominance.
- Concerns of replicating ACT accelerator’s failures.
- Risk of delaying a binding pandemic treaty.
- Resulting burden on poorer nations with high vaccination costs.

Role of Traditional Medicine:

India’s G20 presidency advocated traditional medicine integration.
A global summit on this was held alongside the health ministers’ meeting.
Outcome: Emphasis on rigorous scientific validation for traditional medicine in public health systems.