India to contribute $200,000 towards South-East Asia Health Emergency Response Fund

NEW DELHI: Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister announced that India will contribute $2,00,000 towards implementation of the preparedness stream under the South-East Asia Health Emergency Response Fund (SEARHEF) on Tuesday, September 3.

Dr Vardhan made the announcement during the ministerial round table discussion on emergency preparedness on the second day of the ‘72nd Session of the World Health Organization (WHO) regional committee for South-East Asia’.

While highlighting the case study of Cyclone Fani as an example of early preparedness and disaster management, Dr Vardhan said that accurate weather forecast, effective early warnings, preparedness for timely evacuation of nearly 1.15 million people to 6,575 cyclone shelters and other risk mitigation measures helped save many lives.

Further Dr Vardhan added that “Special surveillance was mounted for early detection and control/containment of vector-borne and waterborne diseases. There had been no outbreak of epidemic prone disease following cyclone Fani.”

Dr Vardhan also informed that recently, the government of India has provided timely medical supplies to 13 countries requiring humanitarian assistance spread over South East Asia, Asia Pacific and Africa worth $10 million. “We continue to extend medical assistance to six countries this year with medical supplies worth $5 million,” the minister added.