Addressing a meeting of experts and health officials from neighbouring countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today suggested creating a special visa scheme for doctors and nurses within the region so that they can travel quickly during health emergencies, on the request of the receiving country.

Apart from India, representatives of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles and Sri Lanka attended the meeting on ‘Covid- 19 Management: Experience, Good Practices and Way Forward’.

Modi lauded the way the health systems of the countries cooperated during the pandemic and for meeting the challenge in the most densely populated region with coordinated response.

He recalled the creation of the Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund to meet the immediate costs of fighting the pandemic and sharing of resources ~ medicines, PPE, and testing equipment.

The PM also noted sharing of experiences and learning from each other’s best practices in testing, infection control and medical waste management. “This spirit of collaboration is a valuable take-away from this pandemic. Through our openness and determination, we have managed to achieve one of the lowest fatality rates in the world. This deserves to be applauded. Today, the hopes of our region and the world are focused on rapid deployment of vaccines. In this too, we must maintain the same collaborative spirit” he said.

He also asked whether the Civil Aviation Ministries of the countries in the region could coordinate a regional air ambulance agreement for medical contingencies. He suggested that the regional countries could create a platform for collating, compiling and studying data about the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines among their populations. He wondered if the regional countries could create a regional network for promoting technology-assisted epidemiology, for preventing future pandemics.

The PM suggested sharing of successful public health policies and schemes. He said from India, Ayushman Bharat and Jan Arogya schemes might be useful case-studies for the region.