Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan today chaired the opening session of the 33rd meeting of Health Ministers of Commonwealth countries through video conferencing. The  theme of the conference was "Commonwealth Response to COVID-19: Ensuring Equitable Access to Vaccines and Building Resilience for Health Systems and Emergencies. <br />''<br />''Speaking on the pandemic, the Minister said, it has already run into hundreds of billions of dollars leading to a significant contraction in the global economy. The road to recovery may be hard and shall only pick up pace once the entire world is able to put the pandemic behind  together. <br />''<br />''He said, for effectively ending the pandemic, more COVID-19 vaccines need to be developed and must be deployed rapidly across the world once proven to be both safe and efficacious against the virus. He mentioned that to this end, the WHO-led initiative 'Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator' has proven to be a ground-breaking global collaboration which is expediting development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. <br />''<br />''<br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Dr Vardhan said, COVAX, the vaccine pillar of ACT Accelerator, aims to deliver at least two billion vaccines by the end of 2021, covering 20 per cent of the most vulnerable population in about 92 Low and Middle-Income countries. He said,  India believes that this alone may not be enough and must be supplemented by all multilateral and bilateral platforms in accelerating coordinated action focused on equitable access to vaccines while also ensuring fair and transparent pricing. The Health Minister also reminded  the member delegates that India has provided COVID-19 vaccines to more than 90 countries under its Vaccine Maitri initiative and is committed to working with all partners to do more.</span><br />