World Bank to provide 1 bln USD health loan to India

NEW DELHI, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank will provide a 1 billion U.S. dollars loan to India to support the country's health sector for pandemic preparedness and enhanced health service delivery, a finance ministry official said Saturday.

The agreement signed between the government of India and the World Bank on Friday consists of two complementary 500 million dollar loans, each to support two projects, the Public Health Systems for Pandemic Preparedness Program (PHSPPP) and the Enhanced Health Services Delivery Program (EHSDP).

"The two projects are supporting India's decision to increase the resilience and preparedness of the country's health systems against future pandemics," Auguste Tano Kouamé, the bank's country director of India was quoted in a media release as having said.

According to the World Bank, the 500 million dollar PHSPPP will support the Indian government's efforts to prepare India's surveillance system to be ready to detect and report epidemics of potential international concern, ensure rapid response, and prevent emergence of pathogens.

It will also enhance India's capacity to detect pathogens, including zoonotic diseases, to inform India's bio-security response and commercialization of new technologies to prevent, detect or treat infectious diseases.

The project will also seek to strengthen coordination and build institutional capacity of core public health institutions to implement the program and deliver high-quality results.

Another 500 million dollar loan for the EHSDP will support Indian government's efforts to prioritize health service delivery in seven states -- Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Meghalaya, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh.

The support will strengthen service delivery through a redesigned primary healthcare model and improve quality of care, besides transforming health sector governance and accountability by strengthening implementation capacity, enhancing performance measurement and fostering learning and knowledge exchanges among states.

The two loans have a final maturity of 18.5 years including a grace period of five years.