New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday told Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates that if his new government comes to power, he will allocate money for research in cervical cancer to save the lives of young girls.
"When my new government is formed, it will allocate funds for local research in cervical cancer so that the lives of young girls are saved," said Modi during his free-wheeling chat with Gates.
“In the coming days, I want to talk about cervical cancer, especially for our daughters. I want to give a budget to our scientists in India. I want to tell them to do local research on this and make a vaccine,” he said.
“At minimal cost, I want to vaccinate all the daughters in my country so that they don’t have any chances of getting cancer. I am working in that direction these days,” Modi added.
Cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer in India, is a preventable and curable disease if detected early and treated adequately.
India reported more than 14 lakh new cancer cases and over 9 lakh deaths due to the disease in 2022, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Breast and cervix cancers were the most frequent ones among Indian women, making up close to 27 and 18 per cent of the new cases.
In the Interim Budget 2024, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the Modi government will encourage vaccination for girls aged 9 to 14 to prevent cervical cancer.
The urgent need for a vaccine was felt to eliminate cervical cancer, which kills one woman every eight minutes in the country. India accounts for about a fifth of the global burden, with 1.23 lakh cases and around 67,000 deaths per year, according to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC-WHO).
Modi also discussed India’s fight against Covid-19. To a question from Gates about how in India there was no vaccine resistance, unlike other other countries, Modi claimed he was able to build a trust between the people and the government.
He said he was able to highlight that this is not ‘virus vs government’ but the fight of ‘virus vs Life’.
"This was my first philosophy,” he said.
“From day one, I started communicating with people. I started following all the safety protocols. I told them ’taali bajao’, ’thaali bajao’, ‘diya jalao’. There was an attempt to mock this in our country, but I had to convince the people that we had to fight this battle together."
“Once the confidence was built, it became a mass movement..then they didn’t question me on whether to wear a mask. We worked in a democratic manner, and we did not have to yield a stick. You have to educate people, convince them, and then take them along. This helped in winning the people’s confidence. No one stopped me,” he said.
“The financial challenge was significant due to vaccine research costs. I built people’s confidence by taking the vaccine first of all. My 95-year-old mother also took the vaccine… I led by the example and gained people’s trust that this (vaccine) could save their lives,” he said.
On being asked by Gates about some of the technological advancements he was excited about, Modi said that technology can play a significant role in the agriculture, health, and education sectors.
He highlighted his use of Artificial Intelligence during the G20 summit for speech translation and delivering addresses in various languages at different events.
The prime minister also surprised Gates with the extensive use of AI on the NaMo App when he demonstrated the AI-driven ‘photo booth’ feature of the app.
