In his interaction with SAARC leaders and representatives, PM NarendraModi proposed to create a COVID-19 Emergency Fund. The fund could be based on voluntary contributions from all SAARC nations. To start with, India has made an initial offer of 10 million dollars for this fund.
Any of the SAARC member nations can use the fund to meet the cost of immediate actions. Apart from this, PM Modi said that the government is assembling a Rapid Response Team of doctors and specialists in India, along with testing kits and other equipment.
PM Modi also said that we can quickly arrange online training capsules for other SAARC nations’ emergency response teams, which will be based on the model India has used, to raise the capacity of all our emergency staff.
PM Modi also mentioned about the Integrated Disease Surveillance Portal, which India has set up, to better trace possible virus carriers and the people they contacted. He said that India could share this Disease Surveillance software with SAARC partners, and training on using this.
