Medical aid arrives in India from the UK as number of deaths soar. Equipment including ventilators and oxygen landed in Delhi today. Many hospitals are struggling to manage and people are having to wait in the streets outside.
New infection numbers have been recorded at 320,000, and deaths are roughly around 200,00 in total.
A local Doctor, Zarir Udwadia, that works in Mumbai hospital and counsels the government has told the BBC’s Today programme the currently pledged supplies would have limited effects.
Dr Udwadia said the complacency with people having received the vaccination during the first wave has now given way to the long lines of people outside medical centres for their jab.
With statistics currently stating 17.6 million cases and 197,500 deaths, many believe these figures are false and are much higher. There are many unrecorded cases as found by NDTV. It has been said that 1,158 deaths may have not been registered.
What aid arrives in India
The UK have sent over 200 pieces that include ventilators and oxygen concentrators. This is to help hospitals manage oxygen supplies.
The foreign ministry spokesman has said that it was “international co-operation”. However, with a population of 1.3 billion people this small amount of supplies will only help the minimum.
Joe Biden, US president, is arranging to have up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine abroad.
The UK are not sending any vaccine does to India as they don’t have surplus. This may or may not be reviewed over the Prime Minister in due course.
France are shipping over oxygen product units, as well as containers and respirators. In addition, empty cylinders have arrived from Thailand and Singapore.
India had the first “Oxygen Express” train, which has been set to deliver and transport 70 tonnes of gassed. The first train arrived successfully in the capital, Delhi.
Numbers are soaring all across India, but Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Delhi have been affected badly.
What is the vaccine case?
India has opened vaccination to all adults from 1 May.
That is around another 900 million people – but there are fears supplies will run out. The two Indian sources, the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, are struggling to meet demands for the over 45s.
The government denies there is any shortage of vaccines and have a stating by end of May to boost production at the Serum Institute to 100 million doses.
But health ministers from some states say they have been warned they may not get hold of the supplies they require- particularly given the surge in demand from the public.
India has so far has distributed the first jab to about 10% of the population.
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