U.S. races support to India as COVID-19 cases soar

On Apr 25, 2021

The United States is concerned by a massive surge of COVID-19 cases in India and will race additional support to the Indian government and health care workers.

A White House spokeswoman said on Saturday that Washington is under increasing pressure to do more to help India as it grapples with a record setting surge in COVID-19 infections.

“We are in active conversations at high levels and plan to quickly deploy additional support to the Government of India and Indian health care workers as they battle this latest severe outbreak.”

The Indian government has deployed military planes and trains to get urgently needed oxygen to Delhi from other parts of the country and foreign countries, including Singapore.

The number of cases across the country surged by a record daily rise of 349,691 on Sunday, for a total of 16.96 million cases, including 192,311 deaths.

Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, Ashish Jha, mentioned that about 2,000 people were dying daily, but most experts estimated that the true number was five to 10 times that level.

Officials from both countries are engaged at various levels to ensure a small supply of inputs and components from U.S. companies for production of COVID-19 vaccines in India.

Jha called on Washington to send India oxygen, excess testing kits and high quality personal protective equipment, including face masks, and medicines to treat COVID-19 patients, including sedatives and Remdesivir.

She said the United States has already provided India some $1.4 billion in health assistance, emergency relief supplies, pandemic training for Indian state and local health officials, and ventilators.

Kamila/Reuters

COVID-19 India