The U.S. is sending protective gear, therapeutic drugs and raw materials for vaccines to India as it battles a catastrophic wave of COVID-19 cases that is taxing its health system, depleting oxygen supplies and forcing cremation centers to operate around the clock.
“Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, the United States is determined to help India in its time of need,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said.
President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, made the commitment Sunday in a phone call with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval.
The U.S. will send ingredients that will accelerate the production of Covishield, a version of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University shot that is being produced by India’s vaccine-producing Serum Institute.
It also is sending supplies of therapeutics, rapid-test kits, ventilators and personal protective equipment to India, which is consistently recording more than 300,000 cases per day, exceeding the height of the U.S. spike over the winter holiday period.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will send a team of experts to work with the U.S. Embassy and Indian health ministries.
India has a relatively young population and seemed to be spared the worst of COVID-19’s horrors when it first swept the globe, but now it is battling aggressive variants and considered the global epicenter of the pandemic.
A shortage of oxygen is exacerbating the crisis, with more than 20 COVID-19 patients suffocating to death after an oxygen leak at a hospital in Maharashtra state.
Ms. Horne said the White House is “pursuing options to provide oxygen generation and related supplies on an urgent basis.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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