Ayushman Bharat is the largest health insurance plan in the world covering more than 500 million people
The United Nations:
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has posed challenges to several countries, could be an “opportunity” for India to speed up Ayushman Bharat health insurance, particularly with a focus on health care primary, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus answered a question about the situation of COVID-19 in India, where the number of cases of coronavirus is increasing rapidly. India overtook Italy on Friday to become the sixth country most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
India has experienced a single-day record jump of 9,887 cases of coronavirus and 294 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the number of infections nationwide to 2,366,657 and the number of died at 6,642, according to the Department of Health.
“Of course, COVID is very unhappy and difficult for many countries, but we must also look for opportunities. For example for India, this could be an opportunity to speed up Ayushman Bharat, in particular by focusing on primary health care. I know there is a very strong government commitment to accelerate the implementation of Ayushman Bharat and with primary health care and community engagement, I think we can really reverse the trend, “said Ghebreyesus at a press briefing in Geneva on Friday.
Ayushman Bharat is the largest health insurance plan in the world and was launched by the Narendra Modi government in 2018. Last month, Prime Minister Modi said that the number of people who had benefited from the plan had crossed the bar of crore.
The program aims to cover more than 500 million beneficiaries and to cover 500,000 rupees per family per year.
Referring to the Ayushman Bharat program, Mr. Ghebreyesus added that “the use and acceleration of what has started could really help in India and this is what WHO greatly appreciated by the way Ayushman Bharat has and it could be a great opportunity to test this out and speed it up and use it to really fight this pandemic. “
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
