US, Britain rush medical supplies, other aid

NEW DELHI • The United States and Britain are rushing ventilators and vaccine materials to India as the country battles a catastrophic, record-breaking coronavirus wave that has overwhelmed hospitals and set crematoriums working at full capacity.

A surge in infections in recent days has seen patients' families taking to social media to beg for oxygen supplies and locations of available hospital beds, and has forced the capital New Delhi to extend a week-long lockdown.

The first of nine airline container-loads of supplies from Britain, including ventilators and oxygen concentrators, was set to arrive in India today, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, pledging that the United Kingdom would do all it can to help.

A European Union official said yesterday that India has asked the bloc to send medical oxygen and Gilead's antiviral drug remdesivir to fight the surge in cases, adding that the aid could be made available soon.

The EU signed a contract in October with Gilead, which allowed its 27 member states and 10 partner countries, including Britain, to order up to 500,000 remdesivir courses over six months.

But it is unclear how many doses have been bought by EU states after a World Health Organisation trial suggested that remdesivir had little or no effect on mortality or length of hospital stays among patients with the respiratory disease.

The drug is considered to be more effective for patients with less serious conditions.

The EU spokesman added that so far, among member states, Ireland has offered to send oxygen, which is crucial for patients with breathing problems.

Germany and France have also indicated that they will help India, which has driven increases in global case numbers in recent days, recording 352,991 new infections and 2,812 deaths yesterday - its highest tolls since the start of the pandemic.

"We can expect that in the next hours and days, we can confirm more help," the EU spokesman said. When asked whether the bloc would limit flights from India, the spokesman said the EU continued to discourage non-essential travel to and from third countries.

Italy on Sunday said it was banning arrivals from India, apart from Italian residents.

The country of 1.3 billion has become the latest hot spot of a pandemic that has killed more than three million people, even as richer countries take steps towards normality with stepped-up inoculation programmes.

The White House said it was making vaccine-production material, therapeutics, tests, ventilators and protective equipment immediately available to India. But it did not say whether it would send any of the 30 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses it is holding in surplus, sparking accusations of hoarding.

The Biden administration said on Sunday it had partially lifted a ban against the export of raw materials needed to make vaccines.

"The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will immediately be made available for India," Ms Emily Horne, a spokesman for the national security council, said in a statement on Sunday.

Covishield is the India-produced version of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine.

India's Hindu-nationalist government, meanwhile, is facing growing criticism for allowing mass gatherings across the country in recent weeks, with millions attending religious festivals and thronging political rallies.

On Sunday, Twitter confirmed it withheld dozens of tweets - including from opposition lawmakers - critical of the government's handling of the crisis after a legal demand from New Delhi.

The glitzy Indian Premier League is also under pressure, with a leading newspaper suspending coverage and slamming its decision to keep playing cricket as "commercialism gone crass".

Mr Irfan Salmani told Agence France-Presse he had been going from hospital to hospital around Delhi for the past three days, searching for oxygen for his sister.

"I have never seen anything so terrible," he said.

In some of the worst-hit cities, such as New Delhi, bodies were being burnt in makeshift facilities offering mass cremations.

NDTV broadcast images of three health workers in the eastern state of Bihar pulling a body along the ground on its way to cremation, as stretchers ran short.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's political science professor Vipin Narang said in a tweet: "My heart breaks for all my friends and family in Delhi and India going through this hell."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, NYTIMES