PM Modi to participate in 2nd Global COVID Virtual Summit today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the second Global COVID Virtual Summit on Thursday at the invitation of US President Joe Biden. The summit intends to galvanize new actions to address the continued challenges of the COVID pandemic and build a stronger global health security architecture.

According to a Ministry of External Affairs, the Prime Minister will deliver his remarks in the opening session of the summit on the theme 'Preventing Pandemic Fatigue and Prioritizing Preparedness'. The session will be live-streamed from 1830 to 1945 hours on May 12.

Other participants are co-hosts of the event - Heads of State/Government of Belize in its capacity as Chair of CARICOM, Senegal as Chair of African Union, Indonesia as President of G20 and Germany as President of G7 respectively. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Director General of World Health Organization and other dignitaries would also participate. PM Modi had also participated in the first Global COVID virtual Summit hosted by Biden in September 2021.

The release said that India is playing a key role in ongoing global efforts to combat the pandemic by supplying safe and affordable vaccines, and medicines, developing low-cost indigenous technologies to test and treat, genomic surveillance, and capacity building for health care workers. India is also proactively engaged in multilateral fora with the objective of strengthening and reforming the global health security architecture with WHO at its centre, it said.