New Delhi: As part of the Government's response to the Covid-19 situation, Ministry of External Affairs has been playing a key role in the empowered groups that were set up for an integrated all-of-government approach.
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been performing a key role in the Empowered Group that deals with ensuring availability of essential medical equipment and supplies. The government has set up 11 empowered groups to deal with the COVID19 situation, a statement said.
India's Missions/Posts have been at the forefront of efforts to ensure expeditious and time-bound implementation of plans for procurement from overseas suppliers.
India's Missions in various parts of the world are involved every step of the way in this exercise. Their role extends from scouting the market, tapping commercial opportunities, facilitating supply contracts, closely coordinating on the ground in ensuring that deliveries take place in a timely manner.
As a result of these efforts, the country has started receiving some of the equipment, and expect further supplies of test kits, PPEs, masks etc. in the coming weeks.
In the past two weeks, around two dozen flights departed for India from five cities in China carrying nearly 400 tonnes of medical supplies, including RT-PCR test kits, Rapid Antibody Tests, PPE kits, thermometers etc. Around 20 more flights are expected to bring supplies from China in the coming days, and this is likely to be stepped up considerably in the next few months as the procurement efforts gain momentum.
According to the official spokesperson of the ministry, MEA has also been at the forefront of facilitating collaboration between Indian and foreign agencies in research & development efforts (such as on Remdesivir, PLX Cells etc.) related to COVID-19.
One significant development in this regard has been that through coordination with concerned agencies in India, arrangements were enabled whereby the Indian subsidiary of a South Korean company has commenced production of Covid-19 rapid anti-body testing kits in its plant in Manesar, Haryana with a capacity of 5 lakh tests per week.
The first batch has already rolled out on April 19. This is an excellent example of our ‘Make in India for world’. The company will ramp up production to meet the growing demand in India as well as other parts of the world.
India's Mission has also signed a contract on behalf of ICMR with another South Korean company to procure and supply 5 lakh Corona Testing Kits.
Six SUV-sized high speed testing machines, which are in high demand, are being sourced from Roche in USA and Indian R&D labs are in touch with labs in Israel and Germany which are undertaking cutting edge work, the spokesperson added.
In keeping with India's standing as a major and responsible supplier of pharmaceutical products to the world, the country has been providing humanitarian aid and commercial supplies including HCQs and paracetamol.
India has gifted 5 million HCQ tablets to countries in the neighbourhood and the IOR, Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, Eurasia and WANA regions.
India is also providing 1.32 million PCM tablets to our neighbouring and other partner countries.
Apart from HCQ and PCM, the country is also providing a big basket of other medical aid which includes essential drugs and life-saving antibiotics; medical consumable; and other equipment for laboratories and hospitals.
Value of the total medicines and other supplies to be gifted by India stands at INR 383 million (about USD 5 million).
In addition to this, India has given clearance to commercial consignments of around 285 million HCQ tablets to 40 countries. Commercial consignments of around 500 million PCM tablets for 60 countries have also been cleared.
The leadership in these countries has been appreciative of India's efforts in ensuring supply of these medicines. India has also responded promptly to requests for deployment of Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) comprising doctors, nurses and paramedics.
These RRTs are ready for deployment at short notice and have so far been deployed in Maldives and Kuwait at the request of their governments.
These RRTs have helped train and exchange best practices with local medical professionals on various aspects of dealing with the pandemic.
The MEA Covid-19 Control Room is being manned 24x7 by teams from MEA since March 16. The control room has received more than 3000 calls and 25000 emails till April 23.
