Health Ministry awards Porter Prize 2023 for successfully managing Covid-19

The Union Health Ministry has been awarded the Porter Prize 2023 for successfully combating the COVID-19 crisis.

The prize was announced at The India Dialog, organized by Institute for Competitiveness (IFC) and US Asia Technology Management Center (USATMC) at Stanford University on February 23-24, a health ministry statement said on Thursday.

The award was presented to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in the virtual presence of Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Secretary, MoHFW, Rajesh Bhushan, it said.

The theme of the two-day conference was The Indian Economy 2023: Innovation, Competitiveness and Social Progress.

The prize recognizes the strategy followed by the government of India in managing COVID-19, the approach and involvement of various stakeholders, especially the involvement of ASHA workers in the industry to create PPE kits, the statement said.

The idea of vaccine development and vaccine manufacturing and the scale that India achieved was tremendous. India delivered more than 2.5 billion doses, which has just been amazing. The ministry took all the necessary steps to combat the Covid situation in the country, the statement quoting the minutes of the meeting said.

Experts noted that the strategies followed by India in its COVID-19 management were very successful, it said.

They elaborated on three cornerstones of India's strategy -- containment, relief package, and vaccine administration. They observed that these three measures were critical in saving lives and ensuring economic activity by containing the spread of COVID-19, sustaining livelihoods, and developing immunity against the virus, the statement said.

India thus balanced the social agendas along with economic outcomes in planning its response to the pandemic and showed resilience through its healthcare system, it stated.

Porter Prize is named after US citizen Michael E Porter, an economist, researcher, author, advisor, speaker and teacher.

He has brought economic theory and strategy concepts to bear on many of the most challenging problems facing corporations, economies and societies, including market competition and company strategy, economic development, environment and healthcare.

His research has received numerous awards and he is the most cited scholar today in economics and business, the statement said.