BRICS nations plan 'Integrated Early Warning System' to combat potential pandemic outbreaks

The initiative is likely to take shape when PM Narendra Modi meets the other BRICS leaders in the next summit

Even as China has been accused of delaying alerting the world about the advent of the SARS-CoV-2 virus late last year, India and Russia are now likely to join the country in setting up a system for early warning on outbreak of infectious diseases that could spread across borders.

Brazil and South Africa too are likely to join India, Russia and China to set up a BRICS Integrated Early Warning System for future outbreaks of infectious diseases and to minimise the risks of such outbreaks turning into pandemics, Roman Babushkin, Moscow’s deputy envoy to New Delhi, said on Thursday.

The initiative is likely to take shape when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for the annual BRICS summit on November 17.

Putin will chair summit, which will be held through video link in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The advent of a new coronavirus – now known as SARS-CoV-2 – was first reported at Wuhan in China late last year. The Chinese government, however, drew flak for allegedly sitting on vital information about the virus and the outbreak of the disease, as well as for delaying putting the rest of the world on alert. The virus caused a pandemic, which infected more than 5.15 crore people and killed 12.75 lakh of them around the world over the past 11 months.

With the forthcoming BRICS summit taking place amid a pandemic, the leaders are expected to focus on stepping up healthcare cooperation within the five-nation bloc. They are expected to focus on increasing relevant scientific and practical data exchange in order to support developing a comprehensive global approach to prevent the situations detrimental to the public health, Babushkin, Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to India, told journalists in New Delhi.

The leaders are expected to add momentum to the process to set up the BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre.

It was during the BRICS summit in Goa in October 2016 that the leaders of the five nations stressed on “cooperation in promoting research and development of medicines and diagnostic tools to end epidemics and to facilitate access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines”.

The BRICS summit at Xiamen in September 2017 saw Modi and the leaders of the four other nations agreeing that the bloc would step up its role in global health governance, especially in the context of the World Health Organization and United Nations agencies. They also agreed to ensure “availability of innovative medical products through promotion of research and development and access to affordable, quality, effective and safe drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other medical products and technologies as well as to medical services through enhanced health systems and health financing.”

The proposal of setting up a BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre was mooted and endorsed in the bloc’s 10th summit in Johannesburg in South Africa in July 2018.

It, however, did not see much progress on the ground over the past couple of years.