International co-operation to address challenges in health sector: Minister

Under the cooperative move, 17 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) and 18 agreements have been signed between the Department of Health and Family Welfare (DH&FW) and various countries.

The Dollar Business Bureau Pharma In a move to scale up international cooperation in the health sector, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, have entered into various agreements with the foreign nations. This was informed by J P Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, on Tuesday. As informed by the Minister, during the period 2005-14, the Department of Health and Family Welfare (DH&FW) entered into 38 deals with various countries for cooperation in health sector. Under the cooperative move, 17 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) s and 18 agreements have been signed between the DH&FW and various countries. The countries involved in deals include Afghanistan, Austria, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Brazil, Cyprus, China, Columbia, Japan, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Mozambique, Yemen, US, among others. Of these, there also exists trilateral cooperation with India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) as partners, a deal facilitated by WTO involving India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Thailand as partners and also a deal involving Statements of Intent (SoI) with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on exchange of medical products. Besides this, various deals involving research institutions have also been agreed between the Indian Department of Health Research and the Departments of Health Research of various countries. A deal between the Department of Health Research and National Institute of Health & Care (NICE), UK and the Indian department has been signed over ‘strengthening evidence based clinical policy making in healthcare system through Medical Technology Assessment Board’. As a part of research cooperation, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Research Council of Norway on Health Research have also agreed upon encouraging research in a range of health areas of mutual interest, including human vaccine, infectious diseases and anti-microbial resistance. And, cooperation in the fields of biometrics, neurosciences, new generation vaccines, among others have been signed between the ICMR and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. Besides this, the Ministry of AYUSH is also involved into cooperation with Hungary, which is aimed at promoting and further cooperation in the field of traditional systems of medicines. A deal aimed at promoting and enhancing cooperation in the field of Traditional Systems of Medicines and Homoeopathy has also been signed between Ministry of AYUSH and Bangladesh. The international cooperation facilitates the capacity building, exchange of information and expertise, research in identified areas and on the whole provides India various opportunities to deal with the challenges faced by the country in the health sector, says the Minister.