RACE TO SAVE LIVES IN INDIA
UK and US send drug, vaccine and oxygen supplies
A GLOBAL effort led by the UK and US has seen the dispatch of essential supplies to India as the country fights a crippling second wave of Covid-19 which has overwhelmed hospitals, healthcare facilities and crematoriums.
The first batch of UK-funded ventilators and oxygen concentrators arrived in Delhi on Tuesday (27), with further supplies due later in the week.
Equipment sent by Britain will be crucial in helping to save the lives of many vulnerable people, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) said.
A vast international effort has been mobilised as India struggles with an overrun healthcare system and severe oxygen shortages, with an estimated 320,000 new infections recorded on Tuesday. The current deaths stand at almost 200,000, with a total of 17.7 million cases overall.
US president Joe Biden’s administration has also lifted a ban on vaccine-production material, and sent therapeutics, tests, ventilators and protective equipment to India.
Dr Arvinder Singh Soin, a surgeon in Delhi, told Eastern Eye the country’s healthcare system was “completely stretched” by the second surge of cases.
In an interview, Dr Soin revealed he was himself suffering from Covid-19. Despite quarantining at home, he said he was taking 15-20 online consultations a day and supporting his fellow medics where he could.
Some of his asymptomatic colleagues were going in to work in hospital Covid wards, he added.
“We are all trying our best,” Dr Soin said. “We’re trying to pitch in with whatever we can, however we can.”
According to Dr Soin, there is enough oxygen being manufactured in India and supplies are expected to be diverted to the areas which need it most. However, hospitals are still currently struggling with shortages.
“We hope in the next three or four days that will totally be in place and hospitals that need it most will get the supplies of oxygen they need,” he said.
“But at this point, and for the last one week or so, there have been SOS calls on social media and so on to get oxygen supply for hospitals who have only a few hours of oxygen left.”
Welcoming the international support from global leaders, Dr Soin added: “We all know that no one is safe until everyone is safe.”
Crematoriums across India are also experiencing mass demands for their services, as the death toll continues to climb across the country. Numerous reports have claimed that people are being turned away as funeral staff are unable to accommodate more bodies. Some relatives of the dead have reportedly had to help with the cremations themselves.
“I have not seen such a bad situation ever before in my life. People are moving with the dead bodies of their loved ones from pillar to post ... almost all Delhi crematoriums are flooded with dead bodies,” Vineeta Massey, the owner of Massey Funerals, said.
In some crematoriums, makeshift pyres have been built to accommodate bodies.
Ajeet, a staff member at the MCD crematorium, said staff had created more than 100 makeshift chambers in an adjacent space to accommodate the increasing number of dead people – both Covid-19 and natural deaths.
“I can’t move my arms, I am dead tired,” Ajeet said. “The whole day we arrange for cremation and then in the night we have to take care of the pyres, so that the fire consumes the bodies properly.”
Meanwhile, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has described the wave as a “storm that has shaken the country”.
“Many of our near and dear ones have left us untimely. After successfully confronting the first wave of corona, the country was full of enthusiasm, full of self-confidence, but this storm has shaken the country,” he said, during his monthly broadcast last Sunday (25).
In the footage, Modi spoke to doctors, nurses, and frontline workers, who shared their experience and views on the disease, and expressed confidence that people will soon come out of this crisis.
The Indian leader urged people to get vaccinated against the disease and cautioned them against rumours about it.
In light of the crisis, several Indian cities have ordered curfews, while police have enforced social distancing and mask-wearing.
Politicians, especially Modi, have faced criticism for holding rallies during state election campaigns that drew thousands into packed stadiums.
Karnataka, home to the tech city of Bangalore, ordered a 14-day lockdown from Tuesday, joining Maharashtra, where the lockdown runs until Saturday (1), although some states were also set to lift lockdown measures this week.
Meanwhile, studies have shown the ‘Indian strain’ of the coronavirus carries higher transmissibility similar to the UK variant, but there is little evidence so far of it being more lethal than the original virus.
The B.1.617 variant of SARSCoV2, also being called a ‘double mutant’ or the ‘Indian strain’, has been found prevalent largely in Maharashtra and Delhi that have been severely hit by a devastating second wave of the pandemic.
In many cities in Maharashtra – the worst-hit state in the country – the B.1.617 variant was found in more than 50 per cent of samples on which genome sequencing was conducted, while the proportion of the UK variant was 28 per cent in the second week of March, Sujeet Singh, the director of the National Centre for Disease Control, had said in a webinar on genome sequencing last week.
Anurag Agrawal, the director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), said, “As far as we know, neither the UK variant nor this one (B.1.617) is associated with increased severity of illness or death. The UK strain is proven to have higher transmissibility and B.1.617 may have increased transmissibility. But this (that the B.1.617 variant has more transmissibility) has not been proven and there are several characterises to prove it and the studies have not been completed.”
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the variant contributed to the spike in cases, but recent mass gatherings were additional factors. Describing the situation in India as “heart-breaking”, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed the organisation will be sending extra staff and supplies to the country.