India’s Covid fight: US ready to deploy support, supplies | World News - Hindustan Times
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India’s Covid fight: US ready to deploy support, supplies

ByYashwant Raj I Edited by Amit Chanda
Apr 25, 2021 07:15 PM IST

The Biden administration has faced mounting calls in recent days to do more on several fronts related to Covid-19 and India

The United States will rapidly deploy “support” to help India deal with the second wave of Covid-19 cases amidst mounting calls for the Biden administration to do more from lawmakers, businesses and an offer from an Indian American tech billionaire to fund “planeloads of oxygen”.

A doctor tends to a patient with a breathing problem inside an ambulance waiting to enter a Covid-19 hospital for treatment, in Ahmedabad, India, on Sunday. (REUTERS)
A doctor tends to a patient with a breathing problem inside an ambulance waiting to enter a Covid-19 hospital for treatment, in Ahmedabad, India, on Sunday. (REUTERS)

“Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific Covid-19 outbreak,” said secretary of state Antony Blinken in a tweet on Saturday night. “We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and we will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India’s health care heroes.”

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Shortly after, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan echoed similar assurances in a separate tweet. “The US is deeply concerned by the severe Covid outbreak in India,” he said in a tweet late on Saturday, adding, “We are working around the clock to deploy more supplies and support to our friends and partners in India as they bravely battle this pandemic. More very soon.”

Neither Blinken nor Sullivan gave specifics of what these “supplies and support” would be. Some details are expected later today.

The Biden administration has faced mounting calls in recent days to do more on several fronts related to Covid-19 and India. Lawmakers from the House of Representatives and the Senate - all Democrats - called upon it to back a proposal by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization to grant temporary waiver from intellectual property rights to Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics and related technologies to make them easily accessible to all countries.

The second was the issue of raw materials needed for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines, raised mostly by Indian pharmaceutical companies with growing popular support. US suppliers of these materials - 35 categories - are required to prioritise orders from American buyers over those coming from other countries. The Serum Institute of India called for the US to “lift the embargo” saying supplies of these raw materials are being held up.

India and US officials have been in talks at a very high level - external affairs minister S Jaishankar raised it with his US counterpart Antony Blinken recently and foreign secretary Harsh Shringla discussed it with deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman. The American side promised to “give the matter due consideration”, according to people familiar with these discussions.

And the third was a call from the US Chamber of Commerce, one of the most powerful lobbying groups, for the Biden administration to release millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses from its stockpile, which the US is unlikely to use because, one, the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson will more than meet its current and future needs. Two, the US has not even authorised the AstraZeneca vaccine yet.

Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley tech billionaire and investor, and Raja Krishnamurthi, an Indian American lawmaker who was born in New Delhi, echoed that call on Saturday. “I respectfully but strongly call on the Biden administration to release millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses to countries hardest-hit by the spread of Covid-19, including India, Argentina, and potentially others,” said Krishnamurthi, a Democrat.

But Khosla’s primary offer was to fund oxygen supplies, addressing a critical shortage reported from hospitals around India. “I’m willing to fund hospitals in India that need funding to import bulk planeloads of oxygen or supplies into India to increase supply. Public hospitals/NGO’s also pls reach out,” he wrote in a tweet, copying @PMOIndia and several news publications.

Khosla, who made his wealth as a co-founder of Sun Microsystem, is worth $2.9 billion, according to Forbes, which also put him at 174 on its list of billionaires and at 40 on the Midas list of investors. He had co-founded Sun Microsystems, with fellow Stanford graduates. It was acquired by Oracle in 2010. And, he now heads Khosla Ventures, an investment firm.

“The AZ vaccine is unlikely to be ever approved in the US given current alternatives here,” Khosla wrote on Twitter about the AstraZeneca vaccine, adding, President Joe Biden, addressing him by his official twitter handle @Potus, “should absolutely release all doses and future commitments for US supply” as the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines will be enough for the US.

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