Foreign aid arrives in COVID-stricken India

NEW DELHI (AFP) - The first emergency medical supplies trickled into Covid-stricken India on Tuesday as part of a global campaign to staunch a catastrophic wave in the latest pandemic hotspot, with the United States also pledging to export millions of AstraZeneca vaccines.

India’s infection and death rates are growing exponentially, overwhelming hospitals, in contrast to some wealthier Western nations that are starting to ease restrictions.

The virus has now killed over 3.1 million people worldwide, with India driving the latest surge in global case numbers, recording more than 2,800 deaths on Monday.

Crates of ventilators and oxygen concentrators from the UK were unloaded at a Delhi airport early Tuesday, the first emergency medical supplies to arrive in the country.

“International cooperation at work,” foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi tweeted alongside photos of the crates.

Elsewhere in the capital, AFP images showed the bodies of COVID victims burning on funeral pyres set up in rows, the earth between them scorched by embers and littered with ash.

“So many people are dying because they are unable to get the most basic services,” Vinod Kumar told AFP outside a Delhi hospital as he tried to buy medication for a sick family member.

“This government has failed us so much.”

We will be there for them’