Bill Gates lauds India's health initiatives, assures support

NEW DELHI: Bill Gates on Thursday lauded India's efforts in improving its health parametres and assured of his continued support in sync with the country's national health programmes.

Gates, along with his team, met Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Health Ministry officials and identified key areas of cooperation like leveraging of IT for health, capacity building and lending technical support.

He agreed support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would be aligned with national priorities and with the national programmes being implemented by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

During his half-an-hour hour meeting with Azad, Gates discussed issues relating to immunization programme, Pentavalent vaccine, HIV/AIDS, infectious as well as Non-communicable Diseases.

Gates was particularly appreciative of India's achievements in containing AIDS infections, polio management, reproductive health initiatives as also recent steps taken for TB management and said strides made by India go beyond his expectations.

Azad thanked the Gates Foundation for extending catalytic support to innovations in health, particularly in treatment of HIV/AIDS and polio.

Azad mentioned that 2012 has been declared the year of intensification of routine immunization programme and recently the Mission Steering Group of NRHM has endorsed the introduction of Pentavalent vaccine in six more states - Goa, Gujarat, Pondicherry, Karnataka, J&K and Haryana.

The Minister also said the Ministry's initiative of name based Mother and Child Tracking System has helped more effective delivery of services at the grassroots level and with the help of the Ministry of Information Technology more such initiatives to enhance efficiency, effectiveness and reach of government's schemes are under consideration.