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At CoWIN Global Conclave, PM Modi urges countries to work together to fight Covid
Condoling the loss of lives due to the viral disease across the world, PM Modi said there is no parallel to such a pandemic in 100 years. “Experience shows that no nation, however powerful it is, can solve a challenge like this in isolation,” the Prime Minister said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday the biggest lesson from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic is that all countries have to work together and move ahead together for humanity and the human cause.
Addressing the CoWin Global Conclave, Modi said, “We have to learn from each other and guide each other about our best practices. Right from the beginning of this pandemic, India has been committed to sharing all our experiences, expertise and resources with the global community in this pandemic.”
Condoling the loss of lives due to the viral disease across the world, PM Modi said there is no parallel to such a pandemic in 100 years. “Experience shows that no nation, however powerful it is, can solve a challenge like this in isolation,” the Prime Minister said.
He also pointed out that vaccination is the best hope for humanity to emerge successfully from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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“Technology is integral to our fight against Covid-19. Luckily, software is one area in which there are no resource constraints. That is why we made our Covid tracing and tracking app open source as soon as it was technically feasible,” PM Modi said during the virtual conclave.
India will now provide CoWin, a vaccine registration platform, as a digital public good to other nations to conduct their own vaccination drive against the coronavirus disease.
Modi also said through CoWin, people do not have to carry "fragile pieces of paper" to prove anything to get inoculated as details are available in digital format. The software can be customised to any country as per its local requirements, he added.
The CoWin Global Conclave aims to share India’s experience regarding universal vaccination to combat Covid-19 through CoWIN, according to the National Health Authority (NHA). “India is excited to join hands with the world to win over Covid-19 together with Co-WIN,” the NHA said in its statement.
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Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the event on Monday. Other top central government officials including NHA’s chief executive officer (CEO) Dr RS Sharma, foreign secretary HV Shringla and health secretary Rajesh Bhushan are also expected to address the gathering. The conclave will also see participation from health and technology experts across the world.
Fifty countries including Mexico, Canada, Uganda, Nigeria are interested in adopting CoWIN to run their inoculation drives, NHA’s Sharma told news agency PTI on Sunday, adding PM Modi instructed officials to create an open-source version of the vaccine registration platform and share it with any country which wants it for free.
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India started its nationwide vaccination drive on January 16 this year, where doses were administered to citizens in phases. Currently, people above the age of 18 are being inoculated against Covid-19.
In a major development aimed towards speeding up the vaccination drive, the central government started inoculating all adults above 18 free at government vaccination centres from June 21. The announcement for the same was made by PM Modi in his address to the nation on May 31. The government is planning to vaccinate all adult citizens by the end of 2021.
