India, Rwanda to cooperate in health care

NEW DELHI - India and the eastern African nation of Rwanda Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the fields of health and medicine.

The MoU, signed by Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and his Rwandan counterpart Richard Sezibera, covers multiple fields like integrated disease surveillance, medical research, emergency relief, drugs, laboratory and diagnostics, and pharmaceutical products and traditional medicine.

According to an official statement from the health ministry, the cooperation will also extend to fields like hospital management, health tourism, telemedicine and training of human resource.

“The cooperation is likely to take form of collaboration in exchange of information in the field of health and medicine, exchange of experts in the field of health, health manpower development in the field of epidemiology and outbreak, diagnostic laboratory support through testing clinical samples during outbreak situation training in the mutually agreed identified areas, deputation of experts to attend international meetings held in either country, technical support in establishing laboratories/ hospitals and research in mutually identified areas, a health ministry official said.

The Rwandan minister is on a short visit to India. The MoU comes as part of the growing bilateral ties between the two countries.