India Health Fund (IHF), a Tata Trusts initiative, and Villgro Innovations Foundation
Villgro Innovations Foundation and India Health Fund collaborate to launch a first-of-its-kind platform to fight infectious diseases and augmentIndia’scapacity to tackle future pandemics
Chennai, November 23, 2020:India Health Fund (IHF), a Tata Trusts initiative, and Villgro Innovations Foundation (VIF), one of the world’s largest social enterprise incubators, today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind collaborative platform –I4ID- Innovate for the fight against Infectious Diseases. The collaboration willsupport the development of affordable, point-of-care health technologies and digital innovations to prevent, control, and eliminate infectious diseasesand supplement India’s efforts to prevent future pandemics.
With the I4ID platform the aim is to co-create an innovationprogramme to identify technology-driven solutions that tackleinfectious diseases. Both IHF and Villgrowill collaborate with a consortium of partners with the right expertise to nurture innovations from proof of concept to last mile delivery; through mentorship, incubation, market access and enabling in catalysing funds and resources to develop and deploy selected innovative solutions.
While COVID-19 has led to 9 million cases in India, TB cases touched 2.6 million in 2019, accounting for 27 percent of the world’s TB burden,and malaria cases in India accounted for four percent of the world’s malaria burden[1].A WHO report[2]stated 700,000 people die, every year, globally, from drug-resistant infections or AMR (Anti-Microbial Resistance), including 230,000 deaths from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).According to another WHO report[3], there is a dearth of innovations to combat AMR due to reasons such as market failure and long timeline for research on drugs and vaccines development. One of the strategic priorities of the National AMR action plan is to promote investments for AMR activities, research, and innovations.
In line with this,IHF and Villgro are joining forces to launch the I4ID platform, around the World Antimicrobial awareness week to put the spotlight on the global antimicrobial resistance and highlight the need for better preparedness for large-scale outbreaks and pandemics in the future.The platform will support startups in developing innovations, such as high-quality rapid diagnostics, to prevent and contain the spread of infectious diseases, including TB, malaria, vector-borne diseases, and COVID-19 among others in congruence with Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan recently reiterating the need for social entrepreneurship in India’s fight against infectious diseases[4].
[1]https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/world-malaria-report-2019
[2]https://www.who.int/news/item/29-04-2019-new-report-calls-for-urgent-action-to-avert-antimicrobial-resistance-crisis
[3]http://origin.searo.who.int/india/topics/antimicrobial_resistance/amr_containment.pdf
[4]https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1673854
