New Delhi: At the G20 Health Ministers' Meeting, participants reached an agreement on the importance of providing low and middle income countries, as well as small island developing states, with equitable access to safe, quality-assured, and affordable vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other medical countermeasures. All 25 paragraphs of the outcome document addressing the geopolitical situation in Ukraine were approved by all G20 delegations with the exception of paragraph 22, which deals with the chair's summary.
According to the document released after the 19th of August meeting in Gandhinagar, a consensus was reached on establishing a platform for making open-source and inter-operable digital solutions readily available, as well as establishing a research and development and manufacturing network for vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. The health ministers also hope that by May 2024, negotiations in the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) for a legally binding World Health Organisation convention, accord, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, readiness, and response would have resulted in a positive resolution. According to reports, health ministers agreed to make climate-resilient health systems development a top priority in order to reduce vulnerability to the effects of climate change. They also pledged to work towards creating low-carbon/low greenhouse gas (GHG) emission health systems and healthcare supply chains that provide high-quality care.
By bolstering multi-sectoral governance, coordination, research and development, infection prevention and control, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), awareness of AMR, responsible use of antimicrobials, and preservation of existing therapeutics across human, animal, and plant sectors through antimicrobials, the G20 members committed to tackling AMR (antimicrobial resistance) comprehensively following the One Health approach. Also, according to reports, they acknowledged the potential importance of traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) based on evidence and noted WHO's initiatives in this respect, such as global and collaborating centres and clinical trial registries.—Inputs from Agencies