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50 ventilators donated by US expected soon
New Delhi: The first tranche of 50 ventilators out of 200 ventilators being donated by the US administration to India is expected to arrive soon to bolster the country’s
New Delhi: The first tranche of 50 ventilators out of 200 ventilators being donated by the US administration to India is expected to arrive soon to bolster the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, American officials said on Tuesday. “This is a donation. The US government plans to donate 200 ventilators to India, and we expect the first tranche of 50 to arrive soon,” Ramona El Hamzaoui, acting director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said in a teleconference.
US health and human services (HHS) attache Preetha Rajaraman underlined the importance of countries such as India and the US working together to ensure widespread access to medical solutions for Covid-19. “We have to access solutions from different parts of the world. It is important to work together for access [to vaccines and solutions] and to supply chains.”
“USAID, on behalf of the US and through the generosity of the American people…is providing access to medical supplies and ventilators to India and other countries,” El Hamzaoui said.
She said USAID is working with India’s health ministry, the Indian Red Cross Society, and other stakeholders in both countries to assist in the delivery, transportation, and placement of the ventilators.
The equipment will complement India’s efforts to “make the best of care urgently available to those most in need without impacting the availability of these supplies to the American people”, she added.
The American officials were unable to state what authorities in the US had meant when they said the ventilators are “repurposed”. El Hamzaoui said the US government, private companies, and non-profit and academic organisations have shared their expertise with partner countries such as India on the production of ventilators and other equipment.
People familiar with developments in New Delhi said Trump had made it clear that the ventilators are a donation. The firms providing the equipment will be paid by USAID, they said on condition of anonymity.
“As of now, the plan is to deliver 100 ventilators in May and the remainder in June. USAID will give us the final schedule next week,” said one of the people cited above,
El Hamzaoui, Rajaraman and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mission director Meghna Desai underlined the long-standing healthcare cooperation between India and the US that is driving current joint efforts against Covid-19.
The search for a vaccine remains one of the highest priorities and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has allocated more than $350 million while additional funding of $2.6 billion has been secured through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Referring to these efforts and the 33-year-old Indo-US Vaccine Action Program, Rajaraman said: “One of the things that we do need to be thinking about very carefully is the issue of access and that differs in every case, depending on how the vaccine comes to us.”
Desai said the pandemic has “made it crystal clear that we are one world” and countries must unite their efforts to “ensure effective and affordable therapeutics and vaccines that benefit everyone everywhere”.
USAID has so far announced $5.9 million in funding for India to combat Covid-19, including $2.9 million to provide care to the affected, disseminate information, contact tracing and surveillance, and $3 million to support a financing facility that can mobilise private sector resources to assist more than 20,000 health facilities enrolled under India’s health insurance scheme.
