India and Sweden will cooperate on anti-microbial resistance (AMR). Sweden intend to boost cooperation with India to tackle a globally “really dangerous” challenge.
After a meeting with Indian Union Health Minister J P Nadda on Monday 26 February, Swedish Health Minister Lena Hallengren said, “We were discussing specifically the AMR work because there has been a cooperation but we intend to really increase it because it is a global and really dangerous situation we are facing.”
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Joint Innovation Partnership Between India and Sweden
Sweden and India signed a joint innovation partnership to deepen the collaboration between the two countries and contribute to sustainable growth and new job opportunities. The partnership was signed in connection with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Stockholm.
When anti-microbial drugs are overused, AMR develops as microorganisms such as bacteria, virus and fungi that become resistant to drugs. Stating that AMR work is an “ongoing cooperation” between India and Sweden, Hallengren hoped that India would join the “Alliance of Champions, which is a creation between many countries globally to face and to fight AMR”.
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India – one of the world’s most important emerging economies
“The innovation partnership with India will strengthen our exchange with one of the world’s most important emerging economies. It will boost our prospects of developing joint solutions to face global societal challenges, while at the same time strengthening Sweden’s competitiveness and innovation capacity,” says Minister for Enterprise and Innovation Mikael Damberg.
At the 2015 World Health Assembly, the then Swedish Health Minister Gabriel Wikstrom launched the “Alliance of Champions”, which consisted of health ministers of 14 countries, to promote “political awareness, engagement and leadership” on AMR.
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Targeting the surveillance
Niclas Jacobson, Deputy Director-General, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs told , “The Swedish Public Health Agency is also the WHO collaborating center on AMR. We are specifically targeting the surveillance to see how is the situation in the countries. And there, the authority (agency) is offering support on how to go about in establishing this surveillance. So that is one part of the cooperation.”
The partnership in brief:
• The partnership covers several areas, including smart cities, transportation and eMobility, energy, clean technologies, new materials, space, circular and bio-based economy, and health and life sciences.
• Sweden and India will cooperate to develop and implement joint innovation projects. Indian and Swedish enterprises and other key innovation players will work together to find solutions to common challenges and make use of each other’s strengths.
• Sweden and India will cooperate on support to innovative start-ups, for example through exchanges between incubators. The two countries will also step up their collaboration regarding research infrastructure and test beds.
• The partnership is intended to deepen the bilateral dialogue on innovation issues through increased cross-sectoral, cross-ministerial and cross-agency cooperation, to discuss innovation from a system perspective.
As part of this partnership, on Thursday 19 April the Government will task Vinnova (the government agency for innovation) with strengthening innovation cooperation between Sweden and India in the field of smart cities. The Government intends to allocate up to SEK 50 million to Vinnova for this assignment up to the year 2021.
Innovation Partnership Between India and Sweden, written by Tor Kjolberg
Feature image (on top): Indian PM Narendra Modi and Swedish PM Stefan Löfven in Stockholm. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT