India needs to explore ways to ramp-up production of raw materials for vaccines and medicines, along with traditional medicines which have huge demand in the international market, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday at the Global Innovation Summit 2021.

“... we must think about ramping up domestic manufacturing of key ingredients for vaccines and medicines. This is one frontier that India has to Conquer. The second area relates to India's traditional medicines. There is now significant and growing demand for these products in the international market,” Modi said. He further added that there was a sharp rise in exports of these products in the recent years. In 2020-21 alone, India exported herbal medicines worth over 1.5 billion dollars.

“The WHO is also working to set up its Global Centre for Traditional Medicines in India. Can we think of more ways to popularize our traditional medicines in line with global requirements, scientific standards and best manufacturing practices?,” PM Modi stated.

“We exported life-saving medicines and medical equipment to over 150 countries during the initial phase of the pandemic. We have also exported more than 65 million doses of Covid vaccines to nearly 100 countries this year. Over the coming months, as we ramp up our vaccine production capacities, we will do much more,” Modi further added.

“The combination of high quality and quantity, at affordable prices, has generated immense interest in the Indian pharma sector around the world. Since 2014, the Indian healthcare sector has attracted over 12 billion dollars in Foreign Direct Investment. And, there is still potential for much more,” Modi said.

Covid cases

Meanwhile, India reported 11,919 Covid cases on Thursday with 470 deaths till 8:00 AM, as per the Health Ministry data. The cases are slightly higher than the previous day’s cases of 10,197. Kerala’s cases stood at 6,849, followed by Maharashtra at 1,003, West Bengal at 862 and Tamil Nadu at 782, as per the data.

The active caseload stood at 1,28,762, constituting 0.37 per cent of the country's total positive cases, lowest since March 2020. A spike in active cases was seen in 14 States with maximum surge in Kerala, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal. The cumulative death toll was at 4.64 lakh.

In addition, the weekly positivity rate was at 0.94 per cent, remaining less than 2 per cent for the last 55 days and the daily positivity rate was at 0.97 per cent. The daily positivity rate remained below 2 per cent for the last 45 days and below 3 per cent for 80 consecutive days. Further, in the previous day India conducted more than 12.32 lakh tests aggregating to more than 62.82 crore tests done so far. Also, the country administered more than 68.73 lakh vaccine doses till 7:30 PMn on Thursday taking to a total of 115.18 crore vaccine doses provided so far. Also, as per the Government more than 22.45 crore unused vaccine shots are still available with the States/UTs to be administered.

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