The government has signed a $170 million policy-based loan with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to strengthen India’s health system preparedness and response capacity to future pandemics. Juhi Mukherjee, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, said the government adopted several practices to significantly strengthen its preparedness and response capacity during COVID-19 pandemic.
She said the ADB program will boost the government’s ongoing efforts in further strengthening disease surveillance, ensuring the sufficiency and quality of health professionals, and promoting climate-resilient public health infrastructure and service delivery.
Mio Oka, Country Director of ADB’s India Resilient Mission for ADB, said ADB will help the government of India fill the gaps in policy, legislative, and institutional governance and structures. The ADB will contribute to India’s goal of providing universal access to quality and affordable healthcare services to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response.
ADB Programme to Integrate with India’s Initiatives
The ADB program will integrate into the government’s major plans and initiatives, such as the National Health Policy 2017, Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, and the National One Health Mission.
The areas that will be reformed are strengthened disease surveillance and multisectoral response, strengthened human resources for health, and expanded climate resilient public health infrastructure, and innovative service delivery.
The government is working towards strengthening disease surveillance systems to effectively respond to public health threats. It will set up laboratory networks for infectious disease and surveillance at the state, union, and metropolitan levels, build robust data systems to monitor and coordinate national health programs for the poor, women, and other vulnerable groups.
Moreover, the programme will improve the governance of India’s One Health approach and multisectoral response to emerging infectious diseases. ADB will support policy reforms, legislations that will regulate and maintain standards of education, services, and professional conduct of nurses, midwives, allied workers, and doctors.
Furthermore, the programme will help in managing public health laboratories in five states and district critical care hospitals to enhance services for infectious diseases and critical illnesses.
