Jaishankar calls for stronger Global Biosecurity

New Delhi, Dec 1: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday stressed the need to strengthen global biosecurity and modernise the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), saying rapid scientific advances make it vital to ensure that biology is used only for peace, not harm.

He was speaking at a conference in New Delhi marking 50 years of the BWC, titled “Strengthening Biosecurity for the Global South.” Senior scientific officials, international experts and delegates from several countries attended the event.

Jaishankar said the international security environment has become “more uncertain”, with biotechnology tools becoming cheaper and more accessible. The COVID-19 pandemic, he said, exposed the speed and scale of biological threats, whether natural, accidental or deliberate, and showed that public health and national security are closely linked.

“No country can manage such threats alone. The Global South must be central to the discussion,” he said, highlighting gaps in health systems, surveillance and laboratories across developing nations. The Minister said India has built strong capacities in public health, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and biosciences — becoming a “trusted global partner” and the “pharmacy of the world.” During the pandemic, India supplied nearly 300 million vaccine doses to over 100 countries under Vaccine Maitri, he noted.

He called for stronger compliance mechanisms under the BWC, including verification tools and faster response systems for biological incidents. Emerging areas such as synthetic biology, genome editing and AI-based research, he said, are advancing faster than international rules. “Bioterrorism is no longer a distant possibility. The Convention must keep pace with science,” he told delegates. India, he said, remains committed to strengthening the BWC and supporting the Global South through cooperation, capacity building and responsible technology sharing. “We must ensure that the next 50 years of the BWC are stronger than the last,” Jaishankar said, urging nations to modernise global norms and reinforce biosecurity systems worldwide.