New Delhi: NITI Aayog member V.K. Paul said Saturday that India is now in the “endgame of the pandemic” — repeating the same, widely-criticised phrase that had been uttered a year ago by former health minister Harsh Vardhan, just weeks before the country faced a devastating second Covid wave brought on by the delta variant.
Paul was speaking at the post-Budget webinar of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Saturday, when he said “We are in the end game of the pandemic”.
In March 2021, just as cases in India were rising, the then union minister Harsh Vardhan, while speaking at the Delhi Medical Association’s (DMA’s) 62nd Annual Delhi State Medical Conference (MEDICON 2021), had said that India was in the “end game of the pandemic”.
In retrospect, Harsh Vardhan’s words were criticised for being premature and ill-timed, since in the week’s that followed India’s healthcare system was overwhelmed with the high number of severe Covid cases. Hospitals in many parts of the country ran out of oxygen and spiraling deaths had resulted in bodies piling up at crematoriums and burial grounds.
The words were later seen as an indicator of the Modi government’s alleged complacency regarding the pandemic, which caught the public unawares.
In July, Harsh Vardhan resigned from the ministry amidst a reshuffle in Narendra Modi’s cabinet, which was seen as a sign of the central government fixing accountability for India’s disastrous second Covid-19 wave.
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‘Vigilant for rogue variants’
On Saturday, though Paul said the country was in the “end game of the pandemic”, he added that while no one can really predict the pandemic, there was reason to believe that things were now improving.
“We are vigilant for rogue variants and we also look forward to the participation of private healthcare sector for the same.”
On 22 February the Ministry of Science’s Department of Biotechnology approved the inclusion of six private laboratories in the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortium (INSACOG) — the network of genetic sequencing laboratories monitoring Covid variants circulating in the country.
Earlier this year, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had warned against talk of ‘endgame’ in pandemic. Ghebreyesus had said that conditions remain ideal for more coronavirus variants to emerge, and that it may be dangerous to assume “we are in the endgame”.
Role of private players
Saturday’s webinar saw the participation of various stakeholders from the health care sector who raised their concerns and questions to the ministry regarding their roles in the future of health care.
Three simultaneous sessions were conducted by the ministry on Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Tele-Medicine and Tele-Mental Health.
During the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) webinar, R.S. Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority of India, addressed privacy concerns raised regarding the ABDM. He said that linking Aadhar with the Unique Health ID is voluntary and citizens can de-link their Aadhar from their health records.
He also added that they can choose to not share some health records — such as documents regarding mental health issues — with other doctors when using the Ayushman Bharat health IDs.
The webinar was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in his inaugural speech emphasised on the role of the private sector in expanding the scope of Indian health care services, and turning India into a global hub for medical education.
The Prime Minister also said that the 5G mobile network in India will enable the private sector to reach remote public health care centres through telemedicine.
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