PREPARE, DON’T PANIC: MODI PROPOSES SAARC VIRUS FUND

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday Saarc states should prepare, and not panic, in the face of the coronavirus outbreak as India unveiled plans, including a $10-million Covid-19 emergency fund, to help the region cope with the situation.

Addressing a video conference of leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) organised at his suggestion, Modi said India developed expertise and protocols that can be shared with members of the regional grouping.

“As we prepare to face this challenge, let me briefly share India’s experience of combating the spread of this virus so far. ‘Prepare, but don’t panic’ has been our guiding mantra,” he said.

“We were careful to not underestimate the problem, but also to avoid knee-jerk reactions. We have tried to take proactive steps, including a graded response mechanism.”

Pakistan was the only one of the eight Saarc states that wasn’t represented by a head of government. Zafar Mirza, special adviser on health to Prime Minister Imran Khan, joined the conference and struck a discordant note when he raised the Kashmir issue in his concluding

remarks.

Some leaders, such as Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, sought assistance and a common strategy for dealing with the fallout of the outbreak on their tourism industries and economies.

Solih said tourist arrivals were expected to fall by 35% and the Maldives was facing a $450million shortfall in foreign currency earnings.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and Bhutan Prime Minister Lotay Tshering called for joint efforts to forge a strategy for Covid-19. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sought a common framework for telemedicine and access to an Indian satellite for distance education.

Modi said India will set up a Covid-19 emergency fund with an initial corpus of $10 million that can be used by all Saarc members, and put its rapid response team of doctors and specialists on standby to be deployed across the region.

India will also arrange online training for emergency response teams in Saarc states and share software developed for its “integrated disease surveillance portal” to better trace possible virus carriers and contacts. Modi said the SAARC disaster management centre can be used to pool best practices among, and the grouping could be a common platform to coordinate research on epidemic diseases.

He also suggested that experts could be asked to “brainstorm on the longer-term economic consequences of Covid-19”, and how Saarc states can insulate internal trade and value chains from the impacts.

People familiar with developments said India had taken the initiative for the video conference in line with its early reaction to the outbreak. “We first heard of the coronavirus on December 31 and by January 15, we had started screening at our airports,” said a person who declined to be named.

Saarc states had shown their willingness to work with India as a leader in the region and New Delhi had reached out to its neighbours to evolve a common approach, they said.

Though Saarc was relatively unaffected with only about 150 Covid-19 infections, the area is home to a fifth of humanity and is a densely populated region with porous borders. These factors necessitated a coordinated response. “We can’t take it for granted that we won’t be affected,” said the person cited above.

The people said some steps taken by India had appeared restrictive but this approach had now been proved right.

The spread of Covid-19 could be rapid and it is better to have systems in place to counter it, they added.

The emergency fund will be created as rapidly as possible and foreign secretaries of Saarc states will coordinate its operation, and India can field several rapid response teams with testing and diagnostic equipment according to the needs of regional countries, the people said.

India has already fielded one such team in the Maldives and sent 15 tonnes of medical supplies to China, and the Developmental Partnership Administration-2 division of the external affairs ministry is handling requests for assistance from countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan and Iran, they said.

A total of 1,444 people have been evacuated by India so far from Covid-19-affected countries – 766 from China, 124 from Japan, 336 from Iran and 218 from Italy – and more than 1,500 Indians are being screened in Iran so that those who test negative can be brought back.

The people also said it would be premature to talk about the revival of Saarc in the wake of the video conference since this was an initiative that brought the leaders together to deal with an emergency situation.