The World Bank has approved $1 Billion fund to help India prevent, detect, and respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The project will immediately enable the government of India to scale-up efforts to limit human-to-human transmission, including reducing local transmission of cases and containing the epidemic from progressing further," the World Bank said in a statement.
"In parallel, interventions to strengthen the health system will be rolled out to improve the country’s capacity to respond to the covid-19 epidemic and be better prepared to respond to emerging disease outbreaks, including transmission between humans and animals," the international body added.
The fund will cover all states and union territories (UTs) in India and will be managed by the National Health Mission (NHM), National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The fund will be used for procurement of testing kits, setting up of new isolation wards, purchase of personal protective equipment, ventilators and required medicines.
