New Delhi, Jan 27 (IANS): Widening the scope for cooperation in health research, India and France have signed an MoU aimed at joint research and focus on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and inherited disorders, an official statement said on Wednesday.

The MoU, signed on Tuesday between India's CSIR and France's Institut Pasteur, would enable delivery of effective and affordable healthcare solutions not only for the people of India and France but for the global good, a Science and Technology Ministry statement said.

The MoU provides for developing potential scientific and technological cooperation and networking in advanced and emerging areas of human health between scientists and institutes/laboratories of CSIR and Institut Pasteur and its international network.

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Director General Dr Shekhar C. Mande and Institut Pasteur President, Professor Stewart Cole signed the MoU. French Ambassador to India, Emmanuel Lenain commended this effort and underscored its importance and impact in the overall India-France S&T relations.

Extending full support to this collaboration, Ambassador of India to France and the Embassy of India, represented by Deputy Chief of Mission, Dr Praphulla Chandra Sharma termed it as a need of the hour, particularly in the age of the pandemic.

The path ahead for execution of collaboration activities under the MoU was presented by Director CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Hyderabad, Dr Vinay K Nandicoori in discussion with Senior Executive Scientific Vice-President, Scientific Affairs Department, Institut Pasteur, Professor Christophe d'Enfert.

Emphasising the commonalities of interest and expertise of the two institutions, Director General for Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, France, Dr Claire Giry appreciated the initiative.

The senior leadership in the health care domain from CSIR and Pasteur, a 14-member delegation from CSIR and DST and 15-member delegation from Institut Pasteur and over 10 representatives from the Indian and French Missions and Indian External Affairs ministry attended the meeting, which was a hybrid event on the Indian side.

The gathering of the scientific fraternity appreciated the intellectual young enthusiastic workforce on both sides and indicated enormous opportunities for working together for identifying and developing new mechanisms and models, in cell biology, virology, vaccine development, infectious diseases, and working on computational biology and human evolutionary genetics studies, the release said.