Sweden hopes to deepen cooperation with India in AMR; AI on radar for future ties in healthcare

Anti-microbial research (AMR) and artificial intelligence are some of the key areas in which Sweden hopes to extend its cooperation in the health sector with India, a top Swedish official in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs said on Tuesday.

The year 2019 is being celebrated as Sweden India Year of Health, Swedish State Secretary to the minister for health and social affairs Maja Fjaestad said, asserting that there would have been no better way to mark 10 years of the bilateral health cooperation than the visit of the Swedish royal couple to India.

"Our cooperation (in healthcare) began in 2009 and since then our partnership has grown in strength. A number of high-level visits have taken place from both sides as part of this cooperation in focus areas, almost one visit every year. And the ongoing royal visit by our king and queen makes the best of these 10 years in 2019," Fjaestad told PTI in an interview.

As part of the collaboration, India and Sweden have already partnered for research in areas such as communicable diseases and anti-microbial research. An agreement between the Public Health Agency of Sweden and the Indian National Centre for Disease Control was signed as part of the cooperation.

The Swedish health ministry official said her country was "eager to deepen and strengthen cooperation" in the AMR field, and hoped that India would join the "Alliance of Champions".

At the 2015 World Health Assembly in Geneva, the then Swedish health minister Gabriel Wikstrom had launched the "Alliance of Champions", which consisted of health ministers of 14 countries, to promote "political awareness, engagement and leadership" on AMR.

Asked if artificial intelligence (AI) would be an area that Sweden will be looking into to extend this decade-long cooperation in the healthcare sector, Fjaestad said, "We are following with great interest, the technology-driven innovation being done in India."