Joe Biden pledged ’emergency aid’ to India to contain high spread of coronavirus

Joe Biden on Monday pledged emergency aid to India to deal with the COVID-19 wave during, a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to what has been reported by the two governments.

The US President “firmly pledged US support to the Indian people” and said that his country “will provide extensive emergency aid, including supplies for the supply of oxygen, equipment for vaccines and also therapy”, said the White House.

Biden’s statements come after Washington said on Sunday that it would “immediately” ship supplies for vaccine manufacturing, along with therapies, tests, ventilators and protective gear.

“The United States has identified sources of specific raw materials urgently needed for the manufacture of the Covishield vaccine which will be immediately made available to India,” said a statement from the White House.

Washington also “identified Therapeutic supplies, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators and personal protective equipment should be immediately made available to India. “, adds the statement of the spokesperson of the National Security Council, Emily Horne.

Modi, according to a statement from his government, “expressed his sincere gratitude for the offer of assistance.”

At a time not mentioned by the White House, Indian spokespersons noted that Modi has asked Biden to relax intellectual property requirements for coronavirus vaccines. Such a decision “would ensure rapid and affordable access to vaccines and drugs for developing countries,” the Indian statement added.

In Sunday’s announcement, the United States made no mention of shipping excess vaccine from AstraZeneca to India, after the U.S. chief pandemic adviser, Anthony Fauci, stated that this possibility would be considered.

The United States has about 30 million doses of the low-cost AstraZeneca vaccine, which is not approved for use in the country, and Fauci, the White House’s chief epidemiologist, told the network. ABC that the idea of ​​sending them to India is “something that is under consideration”.

For his part, a Democratic congressman issued a statement in which he asked President Biden that the surplus of millions of AstraZeneca vaccines have been distributed to countries where the coronavirus hits the hardest, “including India, Argentina and others.”

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

“We currently have approximately 40 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in stock in the United States. These are reserves that we are not using 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 distribute millions of doses of AstraZeneca to the countries most affected by the spread of Covid-19, including India, Argentina and potentially other.”, he concludes.

The statement was posted on all social media platforms on Saturday afternoon. On Twitter, the congressman accompanied the text with the sentence: “We must release the obsolete storage of AstraZeneca vaccines 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 store the vaccines. 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, is playing a leading role in the fight against the coronavirus in Congress.

India surpassed 17 million coronavirus infections on Monday since the start of the pandemic, the product of a second wave of cases which adds a record number of infections and deaths for the fifth day in a row, in a critical situation due to the lack of hospital oxygen.

It was only in the past 24 hours that the Asian nation added 352,991 new infections and 2,812 deaths, the highest number recorded to date according to India’s health ministry.

This brings the cumulative total to 17.3 million infections and 195,123 deaths since the start of the pandemic, which is living its most critical moment in this nation of 1.35 billion people.

India continues to be the country with the worst infection data in the world, accounting for more than a third of the global total of infections confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday, 830,806 new covid infections. 19.

The deep deterioration of the country, which left behind a first wave of cases last February, when the figures were below 9,000 infections, progressed rapidly in a few weeks.

With information from AFP and EFE

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