Every year, April 7 is celebrated as World Health Day, marked by commitments to improving the health of ordinary people.
This year, though, it comes even as key international and multinational organisations are being put under intense scrutiny, or dismantled.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID), for instance, extends funds to several global initiatives, including public health programmes in Africa and India. The dismantling of USAID, and its imminent shutdown by September, according to foreign media reports, will leave several health programmes adrift.
Earlier this year, the US pulled out of the World Health Organization, the sole multilateral health agency in existence. Experts argue that scrutiny and fixing problem areas are one thing. But pulling the plug casts a shadow of uncertainty on public health programmes — especially when they are already under pressure from war, strife and misinformation, among other challenges.
Against this backdrop, healthcare voices are pushing the idea of India-AID — a role the country can slip into easily, having delivered HIV drugs, vaccines, medicines and auto-disable syringes to several countries and programmes for years now. This time, they say, it needs to be systematic and sustained.
Biswajit Dhar, distinguished professor at the Council for Social Development, agrees it would not be out of character for India to step into a systematic role of extending aid. Unlike aid from Western countries, he says, India labels it a “development partnership” — “partnering our fellow travellers in the developing world”. In fact, he points out, Western aid agencies are “supply-orientated”, as compared to India’s reactive approach of addressing the needs of partners.
India has been proud of its “soft power”, says Dhar, pointing to assistance extended to education, health services, training people, and so on. However, these efforts “seem a bit suboptimal”, he says, adding that India has an opportunity to step-up.
Dhar recalls the Pan-African e-network, floated by former president APJ Abdul Kalam, which supported telemedicine and, more recently, export of Covid-19 vaccines and other support. But limiting support to one event or initiative does not build a sense of reliability, he says, calling for continuity. The credibility of an institution or government extending assistance is established only when you ensure continuity, he says. Reliability is important, and that’s something Western aid agencies had established, he adds.
Countering criticism that India needs to first take care of its own, before looking to heal the world, Dhar says that would mean no effort should have been extended overseas — be it setting up power projects or rail networks — because India’s needs will always be substantial.
“We actually have been providing leadership to the developing world, stepping in whenever they needed something. There are few countries in the world that can actually do it the way we have done,” he says.
Going a step further, he says the Indian government should identify countries that need assistance and get government agencies and private companies to work in a public-private partnership (PPP). There are institutions like the Exim Bank that can support such initiatives, he adds.
AIDS treatment
Cipla had hit the global headlines over two decades ago, for making anti-HIV/AIDS drugs affordable in Africa. Dr YK Hamied, Cipla doyen, recalls saying back then, “If we are selling 100 products and I don’t make profit on two… what difference does it make to the company?” Cipla developed the anti-AIDS drug cocktail (3-in-1 medicine) Triomune and sold it at about $300 per patient per year, at a time when the international price was about $15,000, says Hamied, adding “that changed the whole world”.
Citing India’s example from several decades ago, when it built its own pharma industry, he says, “Countries need to become self-reliant.” India and its companies can help through PPPs and technology transfers. However, India should not take on the monetary problems of other countries, given the requirements back home, he advises.
Recently, ’India-AID’ was mooted in a letter from the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (Aimed) to the Centre. Introduce an India-AID basket of medical devices, diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals to fight AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and so on, in Africa, to fill the “vacuum created by the disruption of medical supplies via USAID”, before other countries like China step in, says Aimed’s Rajiv Nath.
India needs to “re-establish the fact that we are out there helping our partner countries in the developing world”, adds Dhar, voicing an idea that finds support in healthcare circles.
Published on April 6, 2025
