Honourable Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, Distinguished guests,

It is a great honour to be here today at the official inauguration of the Indo-Swedish Health Week. I am so happy to see the great engagement from You personally, Honourable Minister, but also from all different actors in India.

I have the honour to lead a delegation of as many as 70 participants from Sweden. They include Director Generals and staff from the Medical Product Agency, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, the National Public Health Institute and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research. They are all present here and will speak later on.

The delegation also includes professors from two leading, Swedish universities: Lund University and the Karolinska Institutet. With us are also government officials, representatives of local authorities, civil society and of course, the business community. All representing some of the best Sweden has to offer in the field of health. The interest to be part of the Indo-Swedish Health Week has been enormous, to my delight. It is a clear sign of the great and growing interest in Sweden to collaborate with India in the area of health.

Dear minister,

When I was here two years ago, we were just starting discussions on how to strengthen the relationship between our two countries. The focus of the discussion was on public health and health care.

Today, we are here to celebrate the completion of one year of the Memorandum of Understanding in Health. It has been signed between our two governments.

In some health areas, collaboration has been going on for some time. In the area of health research, the Karolinska institutet and Indian Council for Medical Research signed a Memorandum of Understanding in January 2009. The expanded Indo-Swedish collaboration, under the MoU we are here to celebrate, should promote further research collaboration, exchange of knowledge and mobility of researchers. This could include the policy formation arena, implementation including health care management, and various fields of research.

Resistant bacteria that cannot be treated with conventional antibiotics is a growing problem globally. At the same time the development of new effective antibiotics has halted. We need to strive for a more rational use of available antibiotics and contribute to the development of new antibiotics. This is another are for cooperation and collaboration.

Another area we will address this week, is maternal and child health. There is an ongoing inter-institutional collaboration between India and Sweden to improve midwifery and emergency obstetric care. Key activities and major achievement include strengthening pre-service training in midwifery. Pilot testing of Government of India’s Guidelines for Skilled Birth Attendants has also been a part of the collaboration.

The Indo-Swedish Health Week provides the opportunity to take this further by addressing some of the challenges. These challenges include developing the role for institution-based midwifes. They need institutionalized training to be able to respond to the growing interest in states to develop midwifery cadre. The purpose is to ensure that all births are attended by qualified midwifes/nurses.

Also, an ongoing collaboration exists between India and Sweden with the aim of developing youth friendly health services. If we can create youth friendly environments in health care this will significantly contribute to the Millennium Development Goals. At the same time we will reduce the infant mortality rate and the maternal mortality as well as reduce the number of teenage pregnancies.

In several areas, we are joining new forces. For example, we are starting a collaboration on how to tackle alcohol related harm, through strong public health policy. In Sweden we have a restrictive alcohol policies in the world which enjoys strong support across parties and from the public opinion. I was happy to learn that the WHO Executive Board, a little more than a week ago, agreed to endorse the draft global strategy on harmful use of alcohol. It is an issue where we have cooperated and the next step will be taken at the World Health Assembly in May.

Honourable Minister,

Before I hand over to my colleague, Ms Karin Johansson who is state secretary for health care, I would like to extend my gratitude to You and to your staff for hosting the Indo-Swedish Health Week. I am convinced this will a way towards future development and improvement in the health care sector for both our countries.

And as I expressed at our earlier meeting, I look forward to see you in Stockholm hopefully in the near future. Perhaps with an inaugural speech at an Swedish-Indo Health Week.

Thank you.

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