COVID-19: India has been reporting over 3 lakh cases and hundreds of deaths every day (File)
Highlights
- Chinese medical suppliers are working overtime on orders from India
- US agreed to transfer the raw materials needed to make vaccines to India
- India has been reporting over 3 lakh cases every day
China on Wednesday said its medical suppliers were working "overtime" to supply 25,000 oxygen concentrators ordered by traders from Covid-hit India amid crippling shortages of hospital beds, essential drugs and the live-saving gas.
"Chinese medical suppliers are working overtime on orders from India, at least 25000 orders for oxygen concentrators in recent days. Cargo planes are under plan for medical supplies. Chinese customs will facilitate relevant process," Sun Weidong, China's Ambassador to India, tweeted.
It was reported this week that China's state-run Sichuan Airlines had suspended all its cargo flights to India for 15 days, causing major disruption to private traders' efforts to procure the much-needed oxygen concentrators and other medical supplies.
The tweet came a day after the United States President Joe Biden said the country was sending a whole series of help that India needed for its battle against the pandemic.
"We are sending immediately a whole series of help that he needs, including providing for those Remdesivir and other drugs that are able to deal with this," Joe Biden told reporters at a White House news conference on Tuesday.
The US President had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over phone on Monday.
The United States this week agreed to transfer the raw materials needed to make vaccines to India, several days after Serum Institute's CEO Adar Poonawalla tweeted to President Biden requesting to lift the embargo on their export.
China's state-controlled media last week took a swipe over the United States' alleged delay in sending help to the Covid-ravaged nation. It claimed India's closeness with the west was "fragile and superficial".
The bilateral relations between China and India have been severely strained since April last year, when the Chinese troops transgressed the Line of Actual Control – the de-facto border – in Ladakh.
India has been reporting over 3 lakh cases and hundreds of deaths every day amid the more dangerous second wave of the pandemic.
The country's health infrastructure has not been able to cope with the massive caseload.
Disquieting stories of Covid patients dying in front of hospitals because of lack of medical care and medical oxygen have shocked the world.
Several countries including France, Germany, Britain, Australia, Singapore and Israel are sending medical aid to India.
With inputs from PTI