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India and other Saarc nations will soon hold a video conference of trade officials to study the likely impact of covid-19 on intraregional trade, official sources said. India is also looking to quickly launch an information exchange platform (IEP) to facilitate real time exchanges among health professionals of Saarc countries Following the Saarc leaders’ video conference, India pledged $10 million to the Covid-19 Emergency SAARC fund. Apart from Pakistan , all other countries have contributed to the fund. India has also kept on standby rapid response teams comprising doctors with testing equipment, under department of military affairs, for its Saarc neighbours. One such team has already visited the Maldives.The trade video conference will be handled by the commerce ministry and is likely to be held in early April. The government sees the upcoming IEP also as a major deliverable from Saarc leaders’conference.The platform created by India will be for use of all SAARC countries and aimed at bringing health professionals of SAARC countries closer together in real time.In the spirit of India's commitment to SAARC solidarity in combating Covid-19, officials here said, the IEP is aimed at comprehensively covering the aspects of disease surveillance, contact tracing, travel restrictions and evacuation, risk assessment, diagnostics, isolation and quarantine methods and facilities, clinical management of patients, treatment options and protocols and safety of healthcare providers."It also seeks to serve as a multipurpose vehicle to further discuss and conduct activities such as online training for emergency response personnel, knowledge partnerships, sharing of expertise in disease surveillance, including the corresponding software, and joint research for new diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for epidemic diseases," said a source.In the mean time, a dialogue among doctors of participating countries on patient management, testing, disease surveillance has begun through a SAARC WhatsApp group of doctors. All except Pakistan and Afghanistan have joined the group."MEA has also been in touch with Indian missions in SAARC countries, regularly updating them on the assistance/expertise being offered by health professionals of India," said an official.On Covid-19 related offer of capacity-building and assistance to Saarc countries, officials said the health ministry has offered online training to professionals from Saarc countries on ventilator use, infection management and control, isolation facility and quarantine management and also training for community health workers.Saarc Disaster Management Centre in Gandhinagar, with the assistance of MEA, health ministry and Indian missions, has also set up the website— http://www.covid19-sdmc.org/ . The website has seen 24000 hits so far. India is looking to include material in other Saarc languages as well.