India records 200,000 Covid deaths amid surge

India has crossed another tragic threshold with officials saying that 200,000 people have died of Covid in the country as of Tuesday.

The country also saw more than 3,000 fatalities in one day for the first time, with officials saying that 3,286 people died on Tuesday. A recent surge of infections has brought the country to its knees – two million infections were recorded in just one week.

India currently has the fourth highest death toll in the world, behind the US, Brazil and Mexico. Yet in none of those countries is the crisis as urgent as it is presently in India.

Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden said he had a discussion with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about sending across “actual vaccines, which will be my intention to do.” But he has not said when that would happen or how many might be shared.

He said the “problem right now” depended on the US also authorising vaccines like Novovax for its use. The country is currently administering Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

“I think we’ll be in a position to be able to share vaccines as well as know-how with other countries who are in real need. That is the hope and expectation,” he said.

“And I might add – when we were in a bind at the very beginning, India helped us.”

In the meantime, Mr Biden said the US would send over antiviral drugs like remdisivir and machine parts for vaccine manufacturing.

-BBC

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ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson

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An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.

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