US sent fans all over the world, but they aren’t finding many now, watchdog says

One hundred and fifty ventilators have gone to countries with zero new cases per day as of the date the government pledged to send the rescue machines overseas as the United States draws closer to a ventilator shortage indispensable. Kiribati and Nauru, two of the countries that received a total of 20 ventilators, have never had a confirmed case of the coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.

In April, Trump claimed the United States was the “king of fans,” although they falsely claimed that the Obama administration left him with none. In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN that the United States has 16,660 ventilators on hand – almost everything in the country’s stockpile since the end of the previous administration – with 2,425. others in maintenance. But there was still a severe shortage across the world, and the United States was at the peak of its first wave of infections, with around 2,000 deaths a day in mid-April.

In May, the US Agency for International Development began delivering the first ventilators overseas, GAO reported, with initial shipments going to South Africa, El Salvador and Russia.

The National Safety Council has briefed USAID on decisions regarding “ventilator donations, including recipient countries, quantities, and manufacturers.” But neither USAID nor the NSC provided information on how disbursement decisions were made.

The NSC did not respond to questions from GAO, according to the report.

The distribution of ventilators was not part of USAID’s initial plan for the Covid response, further complicating the effort.

Almost all of the 8,722 ventilators had been distributed by December, but USAID had no reliable means of tracking the machines and had only “limited information” on their location, according to the report. It was not until December that USAID told GAO that it had “started to implement” a process for locating ventilators, which involves collecting information from manufacturers, service providers, etc. foreign ministries of health and partners.

The lack of knowledge about the whereabouts of ventilators came as the agency had funds to track the machines for long-term monitoring.

Five countries accounted for almost half of the ventilators: Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa each received 1,000 machines, while El Salvador received 600 and Peru 500. But the needs in these countries varied considerably. El Salvador recorded 74 new cases and one death on the day USAID committed to allocating ventilators, while Brazil recorded 33,322 new cases and 1,046 deaths.