The United States and Pakistan have launched a structured health dialogue intending to boost bilateral cooperation and robust collaboration to improve Pakistan’s capacity to tackle existing and emerging challenges in the health sector. Islamabad will also receive $20 million in funding to boost its Covid vaccination efforts.

The multi-agency delegations of the two countries held talks on Monday in Washington and identified several areas of cooperation for “shared goals”. Abdul Qadir Patel, Pakistan’s health minister and USAID Assistant Administrator for Global Health Atul Gawande, participated in the discussion.

“The U.S.-Pakistan Health Dialogue provides a framework to sustain and strengthen health sector collaboration. The discussions centred on establishing a Pakistani CDC, global health security, childhood immunizations, COVID-19, maternal and child health, and non-communicable diseases,” read the statement released by the US State Department.

The initiative comes at a time when Pakistan and the US are trying to revive impaired bilateral relations by broadening cooperation and extending beyond the security domain in fields like health, food, commerce and trade.

Through the structured dialogue, Pakistan seeks to promote their ties in pharmaceutical, diagnostics, commercial cooperation, and public-private dialogue to enhance bilateral trade, investment in the healthcare sector, and cooperation in combating pandemics.

Additionally, the US announced that it would donate 16 million paediatric Covid vaccines through COVAX and four mobile testing labs worth $4.5 million, which help testing efforts in remote areas in Pakistan. So far, Washington has donated around 62 million vaccines, making Pakistan one of the largest beneficiaries of US vaccine donations.

 (SAM)