India looks to improve African health

 01-Dec-15, Business Day

At the recent India-Africa summit in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met 54 African heads of state to discuss ways of deepening relationships, including working together to improve public health.

Image: Reuters

For India, the main goal is to increase its lucrative pharmaceutical exports to Africa, which make up about 16% of total exported items including 85% of all antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV. African ministers, meanwhile, are keen to copy India’s success in developing its drug manufacturing industry, both to secure their own medicine supplies and to give their economies a fillip.

India can be proud of its role in driving down the cost of HIV treatment in Africa and elsewhere through its supply of cheap drugs. It would be unwise, however, to assume that what has worked for HIV will work for all the other health problems faced by Africans and Indians.

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