The G20 countries should lobby for increased multilateral funding to fight future pandemics, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a virtual meeting of the group.

“Increased funding would be needed from multilateral development banks. Resilient and Sustainability Trust (RST) being created by the IMF must keep pandemic preparedness in mind,” she said.

The proposed $50 billion-worth RST’s central objective is to provide affordable long-term financing to support countries as they tackle structural challenges.

She also pitched for expeditious and equitable distribution of vaccines to aid global recovery. Sitharaman was participating in the first meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors under Indonesia’s presidency.

Apollo in Uzbekistan

Apollo Hospitals on Thursday announced its foray into Uzbekistan by signing an MoU with Marafon Group to set up a tertiary care hospital in the Central Asian country.

Apollo Hospitals will be the first Indian hospital group to set up a tertiary care facility in Uzbekistan. “The Marafon Group will be the holding company, which makes the investment. Apollo comes as the strategic partner to provide technical, clinical, operations and management governance,” Dinesh Madhavan, president, group oncology and international, Apollo Hospital Enterprises, said.

“The overall investment in Phase I, in addition to what the Marafon Group has invested in the structure and land, will be over $30 million for the tertiary care facility. Once it expands to Phase 2, we will be reviewing it based on the needs of the project,” he added.

The new facility, to be located in the Fergana region, will be a state-of-the-art tertiary care hospital with 100 beds in Phase I, with a capacity to increase to more than 200 beds.