State govt asks GIAPC to be partner in COVID battle

Bengaluru: Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka Dr C N Ashwath Narayan on Monday called upon Global Innovation Alliance Partner Countries (GIAPC) to partner with the State in procurement of drugs for COVID and for black fungus infection.

Narayan made this appeal while participating in a virtual interaction convened by the Department of IT-BT on COVID-19 with Global Innovation Alliance Partner countries, said a statement from his office.

The need of the hour was to explore possibilities of collaboration in procurement of drugs that are needed for critical treatments, said the statement.

Narayan, who is the State head of the COVID-19 Task Force, asked the countries to partner with new technologies like nano medicine, artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, cloud computing with the approach of establishing a better health monitoring system.

The government of Karnataka visualises to create a sophisticated, multispecialty hospital in every nook and corner of the State. Even the remotest area of the State should have ICUs and other necessary healthcare services to offer. This is not possible without active global collaboration and partnership, Narayan was quoted as saying.

Sarah Kirlew of Australia said Australia has been providing medical supplies through the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi and is keen on working for medical and innovation with Karnataka.

Jeremy of the United Kingdom said the collaboration of Oxford Astra and Serum Institute was a successful UK-India collaboration to be mentioned.

He pointed out that the UK had supported India by providing oxygen concentrators and oxygen generation units.

Representatives of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Netherlands and the United States of America too expressed their interest to work with Karnataka.