Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today vowed to “do everything we can to alleviate suffering in India” as Britain sent planeloads of medical equipment to aid the country’s Covid-19 crisis.
Speaking on Sky News this morning, Mr Wallace said the pressures of the second wave of Covid-19 in India were becoming “unbearable”.
The first of nine planeloads of supplies sent from the UK, including 495 oxygen concentrators, 120 non-invasive ventilators and 20 manual ventilators, will arrive tomorrow.
Mr Wallace said the UK have been in regular contact with the Indian government to respond to what they need.
“The United Kingdom is going to send to India oxygen compressors and ventilators things that are really needed in the now… the pressure on hospitals in India is getting unbearable and we’re going to do our part to make sure our friends India get all the support they can,” he said.
“We obviously commissioned huge numbers of ventilators to alleviate the pressures on our hospitals and its only right that we share and help them in their time of need.”
India registered a world record of new daily coronavirus infections for the fifth day in a row with 352,991 new cases and 2,812 deaths in the last 24 hours. Its death toll now stands at 195,123 according to health ministry data.
The country’s total caseload surpassed 17 million today and the deadly second wave currently devastating the country could top 500,000 infections a day before it peaks, experts have suggested.
One person is dying every four minutes in the capital New Delhi and in Calcutta every second person being tested is positive at the moment.
Hospitals across the country, overwhelmed by patients, are reporting crippling shortages of medical oxygen and beds.
Prime Minister Narenda Modi said in a radio address on Sunday: “We were confident, our spirits were up after successfully tackling the first wave, but this storm has shaken the nation.”
Modi has been widely condemned for the failure to prepare for a second wave and instead encouraging huge political rallies and religious gatherings earlier in the year when cases dropped below 10,000 a day.
The Indian air force have been deployed to fly spare oxygen tanks to Delhi from across India and trains are also sending supplies across the country to where it is most needed.
Dr Sudhanshu Bankata, executive director of Batra Hospital in the capital, told New Delhi Television: “Every hospital is running out, we are running out.”
Boris Johnson, who had been due to visit India this week before it was cancelled due to the latest rise in cases, said: “We stand side by side with India as a friend and partner during what is a deeply concerning time in the fight against Covid-19.”
Oxygen and medical supplies are also set to be sent to India from the EU.
Meanwhile the White House is also sending supplies, President Joe Biden tweeted: “Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need.”
Despite being one of the biggest vaccine manufacturing countries only around two per cent of Indians are fully inoculated.
The US lifted a ban on sending raw materials abroad, which will enable India to make more of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3t15dcB
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