India mobilizes efforts to assemble two teams of medical specialists to be deployed in hospitals in DRCongo and South Sudan

Responding to the request from the UN Secretary General, India has mobilized all efforts to assemble two teams of medical specialists to be deployed in the Hospitals at the UN Missions in DRCongo and South Sudan respectively, India's Permanent Mission at UN said on Friday.

"This gesture has been welcomed," the Mission said.

As per the release, in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the UN Secretariat has set up a System-Wide Medical Evacuation Task Force to ensure high quality treatment facilities for people serving the UN in field locations.

"Accordingly the UN Secretary-General had decided to scale up the Level-2 and Level-3 hospital facilities in UNMISS (South Sudan) and MONUSCO (Democratic Republic of Congo) respectively, managed by Indian peacekeepers, to mitigate and contain the COVID-19 outbreak at these two locations. Based on a request received from the Secretariat, India will be deploying two medical teams of 15 medical personnel each at Goma (DRC) and Juba (South Sudan) in the second half of September 2020," the release said.

It stated that the main hub of command and control centre of MONUSCO is located in Goma, DRC and the Hospital by India in Goma, operational since January 2005, has 90 Indian nationals including 18 specialists.

"Given the rising COVID cases in the area, the "Level-3" facility, which is the highest level of medical care provided by a deployed UN unit, will now further be upgraded to a Level-3 Plus facility," the release informed.

The "Level-2 plus" Hospital by India in Juba, South Sudan (UNMISS), operational since December 2016, has 77 Indian nationals including 12 specialists, it said while adding that the Indian facility in Juba is presently the one of highest level of medical facilities existing in South Sudan.

"This facility will now be upgraded from Level-2 plus to a Level-3 facility," said the release.

Stressing that India has along history of participation in various UN peacekeeping Missions, the release said women of the Indian Armed Forces Medical Services headed to the UN Peacekeeping mission in the Republic of Congo (ONUC) in 1960 to assist with the set up of a 400-bed hospital.

"In terms of current deployment to UN peacekeeping operations, India is the largest contributor in UNMISS (2,420 troops of 16,306 total) and second largest in MONUSCO (2,030 troops of 15,159)," India's Permanent Mission at UN said.

( With inputs from ANI )