Over 40 countries offer assistance to India amid COVID-19 surge

New Delhi, April 29: More than 40 countries have pledged to support India to an "unprecedented second wave" of COVID-19 infections, with providing mostly oxygen-related equipment and consignments of critical medicines, foreign secretary Harsh Shringla said on Thursday.

 

 

This comes at a news briefing hours after two Russian military transport aircraft flew in 20 oxygen production plants, ventilators and 200,000 medicine packs, while three special flights from the US were expected to bring in raw materials for Covid-19 vaccines, oxygen generating equipment, and oxygen concentrators.

 

 

Shringla said India expects to receive more than 500 oxygen generating plants, more than 4,000 oxygen concentrators, more than 10,000 oxygen cylinders, and 17 cryogenic oxygen tankers. Biopharmaceutical major Gilead Sciences has offered 450,000 doses of the antiviral medication Remdesivir while India expects to get some 300,000 doses of Favipiravir from Russia and the United Arab Emirates and consignments Tocilizumab from Germany and Switzerland.

 

 

"We normally manufacture 67,000 doses of Remdesivir a day. But the requirement today might be between 2-3 lakhs a day. So we have to bridge the gap, this is something that our producers are well aware of, they are actually ramping up their production," the Foreign Secretary said.

 

 

Many countries are also responding to the situation in India because New Delhi played a proactive role in providing essential pharmaceutical products and even vaccines in the earlier phases of the pandemic. Several countries including US, Russia, UAE, Singapore, France, Germany and others are coming forward to help India to fight against this pandemic. To make this happen, Indian Armed Forces are also co-operating with the Ministry of External Affairs to aid India.