COVID-19 has posed challenges and created opportunities for healthcare system. India’s top healthcare experts discussed the roadmap and strategies on how industry can work with stakeholders - government, health agencies and multilateral institutions- in building a pandemic resistant world at the Public Affairs Forum of India- PAFI’s 7th National Forum 2020.

Speaking at the forum, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS said, “Surveillance, Containment & Collaboration are crucial to create a pandemic resistant world. Innovation is another area that is important in the upscaling of healthcare infrastructure. There are many opportunities as far as telehealth and technology is concerned but we are slow at adopting them in healthcare sector.”

Dr Guleria further added, “We also need to have big investment in one health. Unless we look at the health in holistic terms, we won’t be able to prevent outbreaks.”

Highlightening the role of data sharing he said, “There has to be a lot of data sharing and planning for prevention of future outbreaks. We should look at the central surveillance team globally which could look at the data coming from all parts of the world. Data sharing within the country is also important to fill the gaps in the policies.”

Dr Naresh Trehan, Chairman & Managing Director, Medanta said, “The first step towards a pandemic resistant world is the development of a sustainable and affordable healthcare system.”

Sangita Reddy, Managing Director, Apollo Hospital and President, FICCI said, “No time in the history of the world has healthcare been so central to every theme around us. Using biology, bytes & bandwidth, we can enable a distant rural environment for a second opinion service, to predict & more. This will democratise healthcare significantly.”

Dr Shubhashis Gangopadhyay, Research Director, IDF and Dean, Indian School of Public Policy said, “Healthcare is not just a sector, but should be viewed as the fundamental backbone of any economy. Investment in healthcare would reduce the demand on healthcare services and also increase productivity of the nation. Additionally, the healthcare sector is potentially the biggest employer in the country and may aid in solving the unemployment issues. Businesses with a high ES rating have been more resilient to this pandemic.”