India to take part in Italy, EU led global health summit on Friday

India will take part in the Global Health Summit which is being co-hosted by Italy as the Chair of the G20 grouping this year and the European Commission. 

India will be represented by its Sherpa for G20 Suresh Prabhu at the meet that will take place on Friday, 21st May. The key outcome of the Global health meet will be the "Rome Declaration" which will focus on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year G20 grouping had announced a number of coordinated measures to deal with the pandemic, including the economic fallout.

Ahead of the summit, Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi, said that the summit "will provide a timely opportunity to share the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will discuss how to improve health security, strengthen our health systems and enhance our ability to deal with future crises in a spirit of solidarity."

The summit will see the participation of all G20 member countries, 3 guest countries --Singapore, Spain, and the Netherlands, Portugal as the President of the council of EU, Norway as the Co-Chair of the ACT-Accelerator, and Switzerland. Other than that, international and regional organizations such as the UN, WHO, IMF, OECD, AU, ASEAN, WTO, FAO, GAVI, Global Fund. Members from New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will also participate.