US Congressman has proposed sending “worst-affected countries like India and Argentina” remaining doses of AstraZeneca vaccine

As the vaccination plan in the United States progresses at a good pace, a Democratic congressman from that country issued a statement in which called on President Joe Biden to have the surplus of millions of AstraZeneca vaccines distributed to countries where the coronavirus hits the hardest, “including India, Argentina and others.”

Indian-American Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Eighth District congressional representative, posted the statement on his website and social media in which he asks a gesture of humanity to countries where the covid-19 pandemic continues to grow and where there is a shortage of vaccines.

“Currently, we have approximately 40 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in inventory in the United States. These are reserves that we do not use and that we have already opened to fight Covid-19 in Mexico and Canada. To stop the spread of this virus internationally and protect public health and our international economy, we must distribute these vaccines now, ”said the statement from the US legislator.

“I make a respectful but firm appeal to the Biden administration to release millions of doses of AstraZeneca for the countries most affected by the spread of Covid-19, including India and Argentina. and potentially others, ”he concluded.

The statement was posted on all social media platforms on Saturday afternoon. On Twitter, the congressman accompanied the text with the sentence: “We need to free up obsolete AstraZeneca vaccine storage now. In India alone, nearly 350,000 cases of covid-19 have been reported today. When people in India and elsewhere are in desperate need of help, we cannot leave vaccines stored in a warehouse. We have to take them where lives can be saved ”.

Krishnamoorthi, who was born in New Delhi and moved to the United States with his parents when he was three months old, plays a leading role in the fight against the coronavirus in Congress.

Since January, is one of 12 members of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in Congress, as well as six other Democratic representatives and five Republicans.

Specifically, throughout the nearly a year and a half of the covid-19 pandemic around the world, the Illinois representative has played a leading role in sponsoring and developing key policies to address the pandemic.

In March 2020, he was one of the main promoters of the call CARES Act, a $ 2.2 trillion economic stimulus intended to relieve the economic crisis due to the pandemic, which was later signed into law by former President Donald Trump.

In addition, he encouraged various surveys to analyze the US Government’s response to the pandemic in 2020. He also He commissioned a study into Drug and Drug Administration (FDA) irregularities in regulating serologic testing for antibodies during the early phase of the pandemic.

The vaccine known worldwide as AstraZeneca was developed in parallel by the laboratory of the same name and specialists at the University of Oxford, UK.

Over the past week, the Argentine Ministry of Health started the distribution process Across different provinces 800,000 out of a total of 1,082,400 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in the country. The same were made in South Korea and they arrived at Amsterdam’s Ezeiza airport through the COVAX mechanism. These doses were distributed between the city of Buenos Aires and most of the provinces except Chubut.

Krishnamoorthi’s statement came to light just as India has emerged as one of the fastest growing points in the wave of infections and its prospects are dire: On Friday, it reported 346,786 cases in 24 hours, which was a new world record for infections in one day. In addition, surpassed Brazil as the nation with the highest number of daily infections per million population (271) Yes average daily deaths have been around 2,000 over the past week.

Argentina for its part is suffering from a rapid increase in severe cases in what is billed as the start of the second wave. The occupancy rate of intensive care beds has increased by 40% since March 15 and the situation is particularly critical in the AMBA, where an average occupancy rate of 78% is recorded.

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