Virus deaths top 4,000 in India; Pope calls for patent waivers
New Delhi, India - New COVID-19 deaths surged past 4,000 for the first time in India on Saturday in one of the world's worst outbreaks, as the pope called for patent waivers to "allow universal access to the vaccine."
The call for waivers has gained momentum after the United States announced its surprise support for such a scheme to enable adequate vaccine supplies to fight the raging pandemic.
India now accounts for nearly half of the world's new known cases according to an AFP database, and it reported a national record 4,187 new deaths on Saturday.
New Delhi has struggled to contain the outbreak, which has overwhelmed its healthcare system and sparked public anger over mismanagement.
India reported more than 400,000 new infections on Saturday, but many experts suspect the official death and case numbers are a gross underestimate.
The surge has spilled into nextdoor Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Virus of individualism
Pope Francis on Saturday expressed his backing for "universal access to the vaccine and the temporary suspension of intellectual property rights", condemning the "virus of individualism" that "makes us indifferent to the suffering of others".
"A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines," he said.
"Another variant is when we put the laws of the market or intellectual property above the laws of love and the health of humanity."
The global arsenal against the coronavirus expanded as the vaccine from China's Sinopharm became the first fully non-Western shot to get the green light from the World Health Organization.
The WHO has already given emergency use authorisation to vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca, a status that paves the way for countries to quickly approve and import shots.
The European Union meanwhile said it had sealed a deal with BioNTech/Pfizer for up to 1.8bn extra doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.
"Other contracts and other vaccine technologies will follow," EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said.
The United States this week backed a push led by the WHO, India and South Africa to waive COVID-19 vaccine patent protections to boost supply to poorer nations.
The European Union on Saturday pressed the US for a concrete proposal and a commitment to export much-needed jabs.
Japan's vaccination programme slow
Rapid vaccine rollouts worldwide are considered critical in the fight against the virus, which has killed 3.26mn people so far, and some countries with high immunisation rates such as Britain are already easing restrictions and testing events with large gatherings again.
But concerns are swirling about the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, with Japan's vaccination programme moving slowly.
A coronavirus state of emergency in parts of Japan, including Tokyo, was extended on Friday with authorities warning of some hospitals being overwhelmed.
The WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday implored the G7 to prioritise equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines around the globe, branding the current imbalance morally inadmissible.
Tedros wants the G7 countries - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States - to dig deep to help find solutions.