Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi offered to establish a COVID-19 emergency fund. Speaking at the SAARC video-conference on discussing the threat of pandemic Prime Minister Moi offered to establish a COVID-19 emergency fund, based on voluntary contribution from all of us. “India offers 10 Million USD for the fund and any member state can use the fund to meet the cost during immediate action to fight the deadly virus.”
PM Modi also proposed to assemble a rapid response team of doctors and required equipment at regional level, along with online training programmes for emergency response team to raise their competencies.
“The integrated disease surveillance portals could also be shared,” said PM Modi. “Let us use the existing facilities like SAARC disaster management centers and common research platforms to coordinate in controlling epidemics.”
PM Modi also stressed on calling the experts to brainstorm on long-term consequences of COVID-19 about how the misfortunes in economy could be revived during the aftermath.
“This is not the first and not the last pandemic that will affect us,” said PM Modi.
Responding to PM Modi’s offer, PM KP Sharma Oli said, “PM Modi’s offer to establish SAARC Emergency Medical Center, supported by strong funding mechanism would be desirable.”
“Modi’s proposal is welcomed and Nepal will also join soon in this fund,” said PM Oli.
Oli said that the economic cost of COVID-19 was high. “It is going to cost all of us if it is prolonged. Regional discussions on reviving economies should be held to support each other by providing easy access,” said PM Oli.
PM Oli also called to utilize the traditional medicines, which the SAARC region is rich in, to prevent and treat the virus.