India calls for affordable access to medicines, easier movement of health professionals across borders

India has called for working towards creating a global framework for further enhancing affordable access to medicines for fighting pandemics and facilitating easier movement of health professionals across national borders.

In his interventions at the meeting of trade and investment ministers of Group of 20 (G-20) countries, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal stressed on the need to uphold multilateral commitments and improve upon their effectiveness to meet current challenges.

Despite many challenges, India has been a dependable and affordable source of efficacious and high quality medical and pharma products to nearly 190 countries around the world.

"We are confident that with improved regulatory and R & D cooperation, India can further enhance its capabilities to serve the world in a crisis like this. We must ensure that suitable instruments stay in place to address these inabilities and preserve the life, livelihood, food and nutritional security of the poorest," he said.

The minister expressed solidarity with the world and expressed India's support to all frontline health professionals, sanitation workers and all those involved in maintaining essential services to fight the pandemic.

He said that developing countries and least developed countries are particularly vulnerable as they may not have matching resources, infrastructure and technical capacities to face this unprecedented pandemic. Such unprecedented challenges necessitate an innovative, collaborative and proactive response from the world.

"Our collective act must reflect and uphold the centrality of the rules-based multilateral system with development at the centre of any action in the trade as well as other areas. We must ensure that the supply of goods, and services most importantly that of vital medicines and food products are not disrupted consistent with national needs," he said.

Trade facilitative responses need to be in place. "Additionally, we need to think of a suitable framework under which critical pharma products, medical devices, diagnostic equipment and kits, and healthcare professionals can be deployed at short notice across territories under a pre-agreed protocol," said Goyal.

Goyal called for fighting the pandemic by safeguarding the global economy, addressing international trade disruptions and enhancing global cooperation to secure fair, stable and rules-based global trade from the vagaries of the world market.