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Global COVID Virtual Summit-Relevance for UPSC Exam
- GS Paper 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
Global COVID Virtual Summit in News
- Recently, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi participated in the Second Global COVID Virtual Summit on the invitation of the President of U.S.A., Joseph R. Biden.
- Prime Minister had also participated in the first Global COVID virtual Summit hosted by President Biden on 22 September 2021.
- Prime Minister delivered his remarks in the Opening Session of the Summit on the theme ‘Preventing Pandemic Fatigue and Prioritizing Preparedness.
Global COVID Virtual Summit- Steps taken by India to Combat
- People Centric Approach: PM highlighted that India adopted a people centric strategy to combat the pandemic and has made the highest ever allocation for its health budget this year.
- Vaccination Drive: PM stated that India was running the largest vaccination campaign in the world.
- India had vaccinated close to ninety percent of its adult population and more than fifty million children.
- A Responsible Global Leader: Prime Minister also highlighted that as a responsible member of the global community.
- India would continue to play an active role by sharing its low cost indigenous COVID mitigation technologies, vaccines and therapeutics with other countries.
- Role in Global surveillance: India is working to extend its genomic surveillance consortium.
- Use of Traditional Medicine: India has used traditional medicine extensively and has laid the foundation for a WHO Center for Traditional Medicine in India to make this knowledge available to the world.
- Indian Prime Minister called for strengthening and reforming the WHO to create a stronger and more resilient global health security architecture.
India-Australia Virtual Summit
Key Points about Global COVID Virtual Summit
- Global COVID Virtual Summit About: Virtual Global COVID-19 Summit is focused on ending the pandemic and building better health security to prevent and prepare for future biological threats.
- First Global COVID Virtual Summit was held September 22, 2021 by the President Biden of USA.
- Participation: Other participants included co-hosts of the event- Heads of State/Government of Belize in its capacity as Chair of CARICOM, Senegal as Chair of African Union, Indonesia as President of G20 and Germany as President of G7 respectively.
- Secretary General of the United Nations, Director General of World Health Organization and other dignitaries also participated.
- Objectives: The Global COVID Virtual Summit introduced ambitious targets in three critical areas for ending this pandemic and preventing and preparing for the next-
- Vaccinate the World;
- Save Lives Now; and
- Build Back Better.