G7 Ministerial Meeting on Health Innovation

• 15 May 2023

On 14th May, 2023, the G7 Ministerial meeting on Health Innovation was held in Nagasaki, Japan. Health Ministers of the G7 countries and invited “Outreach 4” countries of India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand participated in the meeting.

The meeting was held to discuss the priorities, implementation and utilization of health innovation like digital health towards ensuring Universal Health Coverage.

Key points of India's address are:

• Use of Technology in Health Service Delivery: Use of technology & Digital Health Tools are an enabler & equalizer which can facilitate strengthened health service delivery and aid in achievement of Universal Health Coverage.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed the use of technology in health service delivery and also highlighted the need to focus on an enabling framework to bridge the digital divide across the countries, specifically amongst low-and-middle-income countries.
• Co-WIN: India’s COVID-19 vaccine delivery platform, Co-WIN has monitored the administration of over 2.2 billion vaccine doses across the length and breadth of the country and monitored not only cold chain management but also facilitated citizens and vaccinators in administration of the vaccines besides providing a QR code based digital vaccine certificate.
• eSanjeevani: This national telemedicine platform, launched during the pandemic, has already coordinated more than 115 million free of cost consultations to the citizens, making it the world’s biggest telemedicine platform.
• Digital Health Tools: Artificial Intelligence, smart wearables & big data analytics can aid precision medicine, personalized healthcare, genomics, and Clinical Decision Support Systems, ensuring the right treatment to the right person at the right time.
• India has already taken a policy decision to provide all such digital tools free of cost to the world as Digital Public Goods.
• Digital Health as a Priority: India’s G20 Presidency has brought digital health as a specific priority and has proposed the convergence mechanisms of all digital initiatives across the world through formation of Global Initiative on Digital Health housed at World Health Organization’s headquarter.
• This initiative with a network-of-network approach will be crucial in bridging the global digital divide and urged the support of G7 countries for the proposed initiative in this regard.